prime minister Sanna Marin said on Friday that life in Finland will not return to normal after the March closure. He told Yle that Finland will continue most of the new restrictions announced on Thursday after the three-week partial shutdown ended at the end of March.
"We will not lift the restrictions, they are still in place. Children and young people are the only group whose restrictions would be removed," Marin outlined measures including the closure of bars and restaurants and the expansion of the remote office from 8 March.
Marin said the government will make its proposal to close bars and restaurants in areas that health authorities see as “spreading” and “accelerating” to lawmakers early next week.
New normal
Marin said he did not envision the full opening of bars and restaurants after three weeks of closing on March 28th.
"We would not return to the old way of doing things, but to a new type of situation," he said with reference to bar and restaurant opening hours and maximum capacity rules.
Marin added that he did not want to rule out the possibility that Finland had introduced even stricter rules to combat the virus, such as curfews.
"I do not want to exclude measures such as curfews, which are possible under the Emergency Authorization Act and which would be taken from the point of view of safeguarding health care capacity or managing the epidemic." the prime minister explained.
He said he believed that Finland could invoke the emergency powers if the health authorities thought it was absolutely necessary.
"In that case, policy makers need to be prepared for that, and I," he said.
On Friday, Brother–Matti UlanderAdministrative staff from the Helsinki University Hospital District (HUS) suggested that hospitals may see a peak in Covid patients between late March and early April.