Saaremaa Hospital chief of medicine Edward Laane said coronavirus vaccinations and recoveries have reached a herd immunity point in Saare County.

Laane told local daily Saarte Hääl (link in Estonian) that the coronavirus pandemic has ended in Saaremaa. "We can talk about an endemic, which means local spread," the hospital chief said, adding that both vaccinations and recovery have played a major part in Saaremaa exiting the pandemic.

"According to the last study, 86 percent of Saaremaa's population is immune, that number is at 90 for risk groups. /.../ That is the herd immunity that was thought to not exist just a few months ago," Laane noted.

Saaremaa became the epicenter of infections in Estonia as the coronavirus arrived through an international volleyball match, eventually leading to the resignation of Saaremaa municipality mayor Madis Kallas.

The infection led to three COVID-19 wards being set up at Kuressaare Hospital, along with an Estonian Defense Forces field hospital as infection rates far exceeded those of mainland Estonia and even Europe. The island was also cut off from the mainland for travel with the BBC calling it Estonia's "corona island" early on in the pandemic.

Source: ERR

The rural municipality on the island of Saaremaa is to be governed by a tripartite coalition consisting of the Reform Party, the Center Party, and the Terve Saaremaa electoral alliance.

Madis Kallas (Terve Saaremaa) will be municipal mayor, a role he had previously held until April 2020, while Jaanus Tamkivi (Reform) will be the municipal council chair.

The deal was signed Friday, while the number of deputy mayors has been cut from five to four.

As to policies, Kallas said that: "We will reduce the deductible rate for parents of kindergarten children, whether it be food allowances or kindergarten fees."

Tamkivi highlighted the need for high-speed internet availability across the island, area 2,673 sq km , population c. 31,400.

He said: "It is significant that people want to work remotely, which will enable them also to work in the Saaremaa's 'new' economy."

Another municipal government member, Mihkel Undrest, stressed the importance of road improvements.

Madis Kallas resigned as municipal mayor in April 2020 at a time when Saaremaa – one of the first regions of Estonia to see a significant coronavirus outbreak after a visiting sports team from Italy reportedly brought the virus in – was one of the worst hit areas in terms of rates, not only in Estonia but throughout Europe and beyond.

He expressed a desire to return to the role shortly before the election last month. Mikk Tuisk had been municipal mayor in the intervening time.

Councils are likely to have to take up their seats in the last week of November, pending official confirmation of the October 17 election results.

Source: ERR

The state has established a region near the coast of Saaremaa, where potential wind farms could be developed and the residents of Estonia's biggest island have started thinking of ways to profit from the wind farms themselves, hoping for investments to ports and new jobs.

There should be a major wind farm off the coast of Saaremaa in around a decade, which could significantly affect the economy of the island. The wind farms need a service station, a suitable port and the cable connecting the farm to the mainland needs to be placed on the island, ETV's daily affairs show "Aktuaalne kaamera" reported on Thursday.

"We think the range is 100+ people in the service station. These are actual jobs. If this service station is in Roomassaare or Kuressaare, there will be all kinds of support services, which we would not do - welding, painting, renovations. All this will likely be new and that 100 could even be multiplied by three for the workload a wind farm of this magnitude requires," Saare Wind Energy board member Kuido Kartau said.

The issue of the so-called turbine tax has also now been solved and Saaremaa municipality could see millions added to its budget for hosting the wind farm in the future.

"The Ministry of Justice had its doubts, but they have been solved now. And we have a permit from the justice ministry, albeit with a few notes. I think we will take these notes into consideration and will move on with the bill. The Riigikogu can hopefully discuss the turbine tax law in the first half of 2022," said Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications energy deputy chancellor Timo Tatar.

The economic affairs ministry also supports the idea of a 330 kW powerline being drawn to Saaremaa.

"We at the ministry certainly support the idea that since we have these wind farms here on coastal areas, the main 330 kW network should come here and chase them, which means we should seriously consider bringing that 330 kW powerline to Saaremaa," Tatar said.

And locals could become the repairmen and technicians, if it is planned ahead of time. "I like to think that in 2028-2029, when the first wind farm is up on our coast, ships built by Saaremaa shipbuilders from our schools will exit Roomassaare Port, carrying service technicians who will go and do whatever is needed at the wind farms," said Saare development center manager Rainer Paenurk.

Source: ERR

Seven previously unknown hulks have been discovered in the course of Transport Authority hydrography work this year. Six wrecks were found last year.

A German vessel conducting hydrography work west of the island of Saaremaa for a planned offshore wind farm found one of the hulks near the Tip of Sõrve Cape (Sõrve sääre tipp). The wind farm's undersea power cable is planned in the area, ETV news program "Aktuaalne kaamera" reported.

A detailed image of the vessel initially suggested an American Liberty type cargo vessel. But research done by head of the survey effort Christian Riess showed otherwise.

"It could be a German vessel called Iller. It is the name of a river in Germany, which is what they named the vessel built in 1938," Riess explained.

The German merchant Iller, if that is indeed what the crew found, was sunk by Soviet planes on October 9, 1944. The Transport Authority ship had discovered the wreck this summer, while it had not been added to the shipwrecks map.

Hydrography work found seven previously unknown hulks in the vicinity of Saaremaa this year.

"They vary in shape and size, with some of considerable girth. There could be merchant vessels or even warships among them," said Peeter Väling, head of the authority's hydrography department.

Hydrographers have over the last 22 years mapped and measured 70 percent of Estonia's 36,000 square kilometer sea area, including over six hundred wrecks.

There are other things besides ships on the seafloor.

"We have also found cranes and other such structures, also derricks. We have discovered an interesting object we have dubbed a UFO near Saaremaa. It is not, of course, an unidentified flying object, but a formation of sediment – flat as a pancake and measuring 33 meters in width and 0.8 meters in height. It is near Triigi," Väling said.

Source: ERR