Six more deaths associated with the Covid-19 disease occurred in Finland in the past 72 hours, the Finnish health authorities reported on Monday 1 February.
According to the National Institute for Health and Welfare (THL), these fatalities brought the total death toll in Finland to 677 since the global pandemic started.
Most of the deaths (460) have been recorded in the capital region, the epicenter of the epidemic and the worst hit area.
THL also reported 1,080 new infections detected in the past 72 hours. Specifically, 469 new cases were diagnosed on Saturday 30 January, 367 on Sunday 31 January and 244 on Monday 1 February.
So far, the total number of diagnosed cases in the Nordic country amounts to 45,482, according to THL's tally.
Source: THL.
New variants
By January 28th, a total of 115 cases caused by the recently described coronavirus variants have been identified in Finland. Of these, 104 are variants first detected in the UK and 11 are variants first detected in South Africa.
At the time of writing this article, the number of people in hospital care was 135. Of them, 17 were admitted to intensive care units.
The country's incidence of new cases has been increasing during the last two weeks. According to THL, at the time of writing this article it was 86.7 new infections per 100,000 inhabitants in the past 14-day period for the whole country.
Regional differences
However, the situation varies depending on the region.
In the Helsinki-Uusimaa area, the most populated part of the country, the incidence for the preceding 14 days was 147 new cases per 100,000 inhabitants. The incidence of new cases in Southwest Finland (Turku and surroundings) increased to 116 per 100,000.
In the Lapland hospital district, the incidence is 31,6 cases per 100,000 residents.
Currently, the lowest incidence in Finland is in the South Karelia hospital district, whose main city is Lapeenranta, where 18.9 new cases per 100,000 inhabitants have been diagnosed in the past 2-week period.
