“The emergency situation is necessary to combat the spread of the coronavirus in Estonia in the most efficient manner,” Prime Minister Jüri Ratas pointed out.

For this reason, the Government has decided:

• No public gatherings are allowed until 1 May.
• As of Monday, 16 March, all schools and hobby education schools are closed. Regular classroom studies are replaced with remote and home studying. Universities and research institutions will continue their research and development activities.
• Sanitary inspections are employed at border crossing points, in airports and ports to detect the symptoms of the coronavirus in people. People will also need to start filling in forms upon entering the country in order to identify the origin of their stay. Stockholm cruises are suspended.
• Until 1 May, all museums and cinemas will remain closed. All concerts, conferences and sports competitions are prohibited.

So far, a total of 41 people have been confirmed to have the coronavirus (COVID-19) in Estonia, social affairs minister Tanel Kiik said Estonian National Broadcasting ERR today (13 March, 2020).

All Estonian public services and companies keep working – often from the home offices, if it can be arranged that way.

By providing 99% of services digitally, the economic effects in Estonia are expected to be smaller than elsewhere

“I am expecting Estonia to struggle a lot less with the economic fallout of Covid-19 as well, because we can access 99% of government services online,” Florian Marcus, the Speaker & Analyst at e-Estonia Briefing Centre said today.

For example, all learning materials in Estonia have been previously digitized, so that kids can easily continue their studies from home. Estonian Minister of Education Mailis Reps declared: “The most important thing is that teaching gets done and that teachers are involved in the organization of home schooling. Children will not fall behind in their studies.”

“Digitalization has made life easier for many citizens in Estonia right now,” Florian Marcus noted. “Elsewhere, you might have to file your income tax declaration or register your car or company at a government office – in Estonia that is simply not an issue. This means that the disruption to our everyday lives will be a lot less pronounced than it is in other countries and there are fewer opportunities for the disease to spread,” he added.

Investment advisors of Invest Estonia are happy to help you

As a responsible institution, Invest Estonia (Estonian Investment Agency) works on also online-basis from today, hoping that nothing in the service process will change for our customers, except for physical meetings that we can have over the Internet. Moreover, our robotic colleague, electronic investment advisor Eia, is not afraid of any microbes, and is happy to provide our customers a high-quality digital services from receiving investment enquiries to composing tailor-made value propositions.

Stay safe, everyone! And let’s do our work digitally for a while. Our quick and free e-Consulting service is here to help and we hope to announce some other digital solutions aimed at investors to help reduce the need for physical meetings during the emergency situation.