78% of people 12+ vaccinated twice in Finland

About 78 percent people of above 12 years old received two vaccine doses in Finland till Wednesday, said the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health and the National Institute for Health and Welfare (THL) in a joint press release on Thursday.

About 85 per cent of the target population for COVID-19 vaccination in Finland had received at least one vaccine dose.

According to the current estimate, it is possible to achieve 80 per cent vaccination coverage by 14 November, if the increase in the vaccine uptake does not slow down.

Between 21 and 27 October, the uptake of the first vaccine dose grew by 0.5 percentage points and the uptake of the second dose by 1.5 percentage points.

The THL recommends that people aged 60 or over and those in medical risk groups be offered the opportunity to receive a third vaccine dose. Until 27 October, a total of 88,774 people had received their third vaccine dose.

Between 18 and 24 October, there were a total of 98 new COVID-19 inpatients in specialised healthcare. Over the past five weeks, the weekly numbers of new COVID-19 inpatients in specialised healthcare have varied between 79 and 129.

Last week, there were 22 new inpatients in intensive care, which is seven inpatients fewer than the week before.

At the end of last week, the total number of patients in specialised healthcare was 120, of whom 89 were in inpatient care and 31 in intensive care.

At the end of the week which started on 11 October, there were a total of 148 patients receiving care. This means that the burden on specialised healthcare has decreased slightly.

Until 27 October 2021, the total number of COVID-19-related deaths reported to the communicable diseases register was 1,150.

The incidence of new COVID-19 cases over the last two-week period was 133 per 100,000 inhabitants. This is around 6 per cent less than in the preceding two-week period (29 September–10 October) when the incidence of cases was 141 per 100,000 inhabitants. The weekly number of new COVID-19 cases has remained at the same level for the past four weeks, standing at around 3,600–4,000 cases per week.

More than 74,000 COVID-19 tests were taken between 18 and 24 October. The figure is slightly lower than during the past three weeks when about 79,000–81,000 tests were carried out per week.

The proportion of positive cases of all samples taken last week was 4.9 per cent, showing a slight increase on the previous week’s 4.6 per cent.