Chief of Staff of the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health, Kirsi Varhila, told Yle on Wednesday that he believes that coronavirus restrictions in Finland were lifted too early.
Restrictions on preventing the spread of the virus were originally intended to be gradually eased when vaccination coverage reached 80%, but most of the remaining measures – such as bars and restaurants and public events – were lifted last week.
On Wednesday night, just over 63 percent of the countryโs population has received two doses of the coronavirus vaccine, compared with 71.9 percent of those aged 12 and older.
"Restrictions were eased fairly quickly," Varhila said. "By the beginning of October, almost all restrictions had already been lifted."
Currently, the only remaining restrictions apply to bars and restaurants located in areas considered to be in the accelerating phase of a pandemic. All other measures are recommendations.
"Yes, we in the Ministry were very strongly of the opinion that the restrictions should not have been lifted on such a large scale," he said, adding that decisions on new restrictions are now difficult to make even as the number of infections increases.
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The number of hospitalizations related to Covid is increasing
In addition to the number of infections, the number of patients treated in hospital for the virus has also begun to increase.
According to figures released by the Public Health Agency THL last Wednesday, the hospital currently has 112 coronavirus patients, up from 89 two weeks ago.
In addition, the number of patients in intensive care units has risen to 33 on Wednesday night. This figure still does not burden health services, as the national threshold is estimated at about 40 patients receiving intensive care.
However, Professor Matti Reinikainen The University of Eastern Finland told Yle that the number of intensive care patients is not evenly distributed and the effective capacity of individual hospitals may already be expanded.
The treatment of coronavirus patients requires more resources than the treatment of conventional intensive care patients, Reinikainen pointed out.
"This is because it is typically a very severe respiratory failure that in itself requires quite a bit of treatment. In addition, patients must be isolated from other patients and staff must wear protective clothing," he said, adding that the number of coronavirus patients has increased "worrying".
"In practice, this means that non-emergency surgical procedures must be postponed in order to have sufficient staff for intensive care tasks," Reinikainen said.
In Finland, vaccines are below the EU average
In the summer, Finland’s vaccination rate was clearly higher than the EU average, but the pace of introduction has slowed down during the autumn and the number has now fallen below the average of other EU countries.
A report The European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) published last week that Finland’s relatively low vaccine coverage increases the risk of a sudden increase in new infections.
This in turn increases the need for hospitalization and can also lead to more deaths, the ECDC report outlined.
According to the report, a sharp rise in the number of infections also increases the risk of fully vaccinated people getting a serious illness.
Source: The Nordic Page