According to the Department of Health and Welfare (THL), its calculation that daily new cases of coronavirus could exceed 11,000 by April was essentially a theoretical exercise that has received too much attention. According to the Ministry of Justice, the THL forecast was one of the factors in the decision to postpone the municipal elections from April to June.
Mika SalminenThe head of THL’s health safety department told Yle on Sunday that the main purpose of the calculation was to show what exponential growth would mean, if not curbed at all.
A document released by THL on Saturday night predicts that if current infection trends continue to be restless, Finland may see daily new infection levels of 2,600–11,200 by mid-April. So far, the highest daily rate of new infections was 797 cases last Wednesday.
The upper-level calculation does not take into account the effect of the new restrictions, but they were purely mathematical curves based on the infection trend, Salminen said.
He added it "too much attention" has been paid for the figures, but he did not believe that the Ministry had misinterpreted them.
According to Salminen, the worst chances will not materialize because the restrictions planned for the next few weeks are likely to reduce infectivity.
"The aim was to illustrate the worst that can happen if nothing is done," he said.
“Exact timing cannot be predicted”
However, he said it was difficult to make precise calculations or models of the effects of the planned closure of the three-week restaurants, bars and many schools and other facilities starting next week.
"It is impossible to predict the exact timing of the situation," Salminen said.
The Justice Department said on Saturday that the THL forecast was one of the factors that influenced the decision to postpone the municipal elections. Representatives of all but one parliamentary party agreed on a delay in a meeting with the Minister of Justice Anna-Maja Henriksson (SPP).
Salminen said he did not believe the figures were interpreted too literally in the decision-making process.
"There were much more relevant things in our statement than the figures themselves. We can’t say what the incidence would be on election day, but they have risen pretty quickly within a week," he said.
The number of new laboratory-confirmed infections nationwide exceeded 62,000 on Saturday, about 4,400 last week. In the past two weeks, there have been 8,300 new cases nationally. That’s more than 2,000 more than in the previous two weeks.
In early February, THL released alternative scenarios, according to which variants of the virus are likely to conquer even during partial locking.
Salminen stated that no clear solution was found on how quarantined people can exercise their right to vote if there are many of them by election day.
Most risk groups to be vaccinated by June
In a forecast given to Henriksson on Friday, the THL noted that due to seasonal fluctuations "late May and early June are more likely to be at a calmer stage than on 18 April and [most at-risk] the population is protected by vaccinations" By that time.
According to Salminen, it is important to keep in mind that not all risk groups will be vaccinated by mid-April. According to the THL report, most have been inoculated by the end of May or early June.
The institute predicts that 70 percent of the population – enough to achieve herd immunity – will be infected by the end of September based on current vaccination rates.
It could accelerate if, for example, the EU approves a single dose of Johnson & Johnson vaccination on Thursday.
Source: The Nordic Page