Coronavirus infections on wane in Finland

There is still a clear downward trend for the coronavirus epidemic in Finland, said the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (THL) on Friday.

According to the THL register data, the number of people in specialised medical care or intensive care and deaths caused by the coronavirus, as well as the incidence rate, have decreased significantly in all age groups since the peak in March and April.

Measuring the number of laboratory-confirmed coronavirus infections does not currently provide a reliable picture of the epidemic, as testing practices have changed.

Many people with a positive result in a coronavirus home test do not verify the result with a PCR test, so the infection doesn’t get officially registered.

THL records any deaths within 30 days from a positive coronavirus test reported to the National Infectious Diseases Register as coronavirus-related deaths so that the development of the epidemic can also be monitored in very fragile populations.

The number of these coronavirus-related deaths has decreased steadily since the peak at the end of March. The data on the deaths of the last few weeks is inadequate due to a delay in reporting and deaths are likely to increase slightly, but the downward trend is still clear until June.