Finland has vaccinated a quarter of the population against Covid-19

Finland has already administered the vaccine against coronavirus to nearly 1.5 million people, more than a quarter of the country's population.

According to the website of the National Institute for Health and Welfare (THL), which publishes daily data on the number of vaccinations, at the time of writing this article the total number of people who had received at least one dose was 1,474,441.

The figure is equivalent to 26.7% of the country's population, which is over 5.5 million inhabitants.

Of the total vaccinated, 422,435 are people living in the Helsinki-Uusimaa area, the Finnish region hardest hit by the Covid-19 virus since the pandemic began.

The health authorities insist that the vaccination process is progressing at a good pace. However, the number of people who have already received the second dose is very low compared to other countries.

Only 2.6% of the population, 147,069 people, have already received the full regimen.

This slowness is due to the fact that in Finland the time between the first and the second dose is longer, lasting up to 2-3 months in most cases.

The authorities have chosen to have a larger mass of people protected with at least one dose - which according to experts provides an immunization of around 70% - before administering the second dose on a large scale.

New infections

On Friday, THL reported 267 new cases of infection and 1 more death associated with the Covid-19.

Finland has recorded 85,344 infections and 903 deaths associated with the disease since the outbreak of the epidemic.

The incidence of new cases continues to decline, and is now 74.4 new infections per 100,000 inhabitants in the last two weeks.

Restrictions relaxed

The incidence of new cases has been declining in the last five weeks, according to the latest monitoring report on the pandemic from health authorities.

The drop in the number of infections has led the government to relax some restrictions, for example concerning restaurants and outdoor activities, and to publish a schedule for the reopening.

However, the government is reluctant to lift the restrictions on entry to the country, which Finland imposes even on all the countries of the Schengen area with the exception of Iceland.