President Alar Karis is on his inaugural domestic visit in Valga County, where the ongoing coronavirus crisis has left its mark on a range of areas. “This region should be considered the gateway to Estonia, not its periphery,” the head of state remarked. “Lots of things start from right here in Valga and Valga County. The health crisis is throwing the core problems in Estonian medicine into sharp relief. There are too few nurses, for one. Doctors are spread thin between multiple health care institutions, since otherwise there simply wouldn’t be any doctors in some parts of the country. Within such a fragile system, even one person walking away leaves a huge void behind them.”
In his meeting with the management of Valga Hospital, President Karis touched on vaccination-related issues, including widely held myths, and the fact that cooperation with local governments is important in boosting the rate of vaccination.
Meeting with students from Valga Gymnasium, the head of state spoke of knowledge and about the options this will open up to the students in their lives. He stressed the importance of critical thinking. “What with the situation we’re in at the moment and there being wall-to-wall information, not all of it accurate, even experts like doctors find it hard to make decisions and know how to proceed,” he said. “The important thing is to never stop asking questions. Stay on the smart side.”
The students showed an interest in what to think about the decisions being made in regard to schools by politicians in critical phases of the pandemic. President Karis said that the decisions made by the state during the crisis should be clear, justified and effectively communicated. He underscored the importance of decision-making to the final-year students. “Unpleasant circumstances don’t just go away,” he remarked. “You have to deal with them, and come to decisions about them, as promptly as you can. And if those decisions don’t work out, then you have to make new ones. Not making any decisions in the first place is by far the worse option.”
While in the county, President Karis was also introduced to the work of the local rescue team and to rescuers themselves. The Rescue Board has been involved in the response to the coronavirus crisis since the very beginning, assuming responsibility for the functioning of regional crisis centres. During the meeting, it was said that in the midst of such a complex crisis, political consensus is vital in order to achieve a specific aim – in this case to combat the outbreak effectively – as it was in the recent past when Estonia sought to join the European Union and NATO.
President Karis was shown around Valga, guided by city architect Jiří Tintěra, and met with the heads of the municipality. He also visited the agricultural company Hummuli Agro in Tõrva municipality and took a look at the teaching barn being constructed by the company for the local ‘Sipsik’ kindergarten. On Thursday evening the head of state will be meeting with the heads of Tõrva municipality.
