Coronavirus infection rate in Finland skyrockets

The COVID-19 situation has worsened almost throughout Finland but particularly in the Greater Helsinki area and the Hospital District of Helsinki and Uusimaa, said the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health and the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (THL) in a press release on Thursday.

New restrictions and recommendations have already been introduced and it will be applicable not only for the Hospital District of Helsinki and Uusimaa but also elsewhere in the country.

However, in South Savo, for example, transmission chains have been kept well under control.

During the period of 16–22 November, the number of cases increased sharply, and new infections were reported in all hospital districts.

The majority of new cases were reported in the Hospital District of Helsinki and Uusimaa where the number of infections has been the highest since the epidemic started.

In addition to Helsinki and Uusimaa, the Päijät-Häme Hospital District has reported of having entered the community transmission phase of the epidemic.

The Hospital districts of Kanta-Häme, Kymenlaakso, Länsi-Pohja, Pirkanmaa, North Ostrobothnia, Vaasa, Southwest Finland, and the Åland Islands are in the acceleration phase.

The remaining 11 hospital districts are at a stable level, but there are individual cities and towns situated in some of these hospital districts that have entered the acceleration phase. These are Alajärvi and Soini, Kronoby, Joensuu, Rauma, and Pori.

Between 16 and 22 November, a total of 2,541 new cases were reported to the communicable diseases register, representing an increase of 906 cases from that in the previous week. At the national level, the incidence of new cases was 46 per 100,000 inhabitants, while in the previous week it was 30.

The total number of new cases in the last two-week period (9–22 November) was 4,176 or 1,315 cases more than that in the preceding two-week period. The incidence of new cases was 75 per 100,000 inhabitants, while in the preceding two-week period it was 52.

Currently, the estimated basic reproduction number is 1.0–1.2, with a 90 per cent probability.

The majority of the new cases continue to be of domestic origin. Cases where the virus was contracted abroad accounted for about 3% of all new cases, although there was a lot of variation between hospital districts (ranging from 0% to 36%). Less than 1% of all cases were infections caught in Finland that came from people who had contracted the virus abroad.

The majority of all cases, that is about 75% of them, were reported among people aged less than 50 years of age and some 40% among people less than 30 years of age.

Over the past few weeks, the number of infections has also increased among older age groups. People over 60 years of age now account for more than 12% of the cases, which is a few percentage points higher than that a couple of weeks ago.

What is worrying is that in the past few weeks, the percentage of people over 70 years of age getting infected with coronavirus has risen by about three percentage points to approximately 6%. People over 70 years of age have an elevated risk of developing a more serious form of COVID-19; so it is essential to protect them from contracting the virus.

The coronavirus death toll in Finland increased to 388 till Wednesday while the total number of coronavirus infections in the country has increased to 22,652, said the THL on Wednesday.