Coronavirus Carrier Travels by Bus from Riga to Tallinn

The first confirmed case of coronavirus has been confirmed in the Baltic states, Estonia reported earlier today.

The affected individual is an Iranian national resident in Estonia, who returned to Estonia on a Lux Express bus from Riga, Latvia.

According to the Latvian Center for Disease Prevention and Control (SPKC), the individual took a minibus from the airport to the bus station on Wednesday at 2 pm and arrived in Tallinn by bus at 6.30 pm. The bus was cleaned while in Tallinn and then traveled onward to St. Petersburg.

"We received information that the passenger travelled with us today at 9.30 am. We immediately convened a crisis team, which contacted the Health Board and with whom we implemented a set of measures to ensure safety”, the CEO of Lux Express, Janno Ritsberg, told the ERR news agency.

Estonia’s Social Affairs Minister Tanel Kiik says that ”For now, there are no plans of putting cities in quarantine following this one case; the patient is isolated, there is no risk of the disease spreading, now we have to identify all the people the patient was in contact with.”

By Elene Dzebisashvili