EPIDEMIC RECEDING

Only one Covid-19 patient remains in intensive care

File photo of medical specialists treating a patient in an intensive care unit in Moscow. Photo: Andrei Nikerichev/Moscow News Agency/via Reuters.

Finland recorded 1 death and 19 new infections in the past 24 hours.

Finland seems to be on the right track to defeat the coronavirus.

The Helsinki government released the results of its latest epidemiological assessment, showing how the disease is in decline. Figures from the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (THL) confirm the positive evolution: This week only 2 deaths were reported in the whole country and the number of hospitalized patients is also decreasing.

The risk of collapse in the intensive care units also seems remote, since there is only one patient left.

However the possibility of becoming infected is still out there. On Friday 26 June, THL reported 19 new infections. With those contagions, the total number of laboratory-diagnosed cases of Covid-19 throughout the country rose to 7,191.

The health agency also reported 1 new death associated with the disease, which occurred in the Helsinki metropolitan area. So far, the country's death toll is 328.

The region of Helsinki-Uusimaa is the worst-hit area. According to official figures, to date, 5,275 cases of Covid-19 have been found in the capital region. Of them, 2,726 have been diagnosed in the city of Helsinki.

To date, the Helsinki university hospital special catchment area (HYKS) reported 271 fatalities (82.6% of the country's total). This means four out of every five deaths caused by coronavirus have occurred in the Helsinki hospital area.

Source: THL.

Helsinki-Uusimaa is also the region showing the highest incidence of infections: there are 312.9 diagnosed cases per 100,000 inhabitants.

For the whole country, the average incidence rate is less than half that in Helsinki: 130 cases per 100,000 inhabitants, according to THL.

In intensive care

On Monday, the official number of patients hospitalized due to coronavirus nationwide was 24. And the number of people in intensive care units was 1.

According to a preliminary estimate by THL, around 6,600 people may have already recovered from the disease.

To date, Finnish laboratories have taken samples from approximately 237,500 people.