On Saturday 23 May, Finland reported zero deaths caused by coronavirus (koronavirus, in Finnish) for second straight day.
This is the first two days without any fatalities in two months. Finland reported its first death caused by Covid-19 on 21 March and so far 306 people have lost their lives, according to official figures.
On Saturday, the Finnish National Institute for Health and Welfare (THL) reported 31 more coronavirus infections (30 of them in the Helsinki-Uusimaa region). With them, the total number of laboratory-diagnosed cases throughout the country rose to 6,568.
The region of Helsinki-Uusimaa remains the epicenter and worst-hit area. According to official figures, to date, 4,759 cases of Covid-19 have been found in the capital metropolitan area. Of them, 2,445 have been diagnosed in the city of Helsinki.
To date, the Helsinki university hospital special catchment area (HYKS) reported 252 fatalities (82% 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 282.3 diagnosed cases per 100,000 inhabitants. This rate grows slightly everyday.
For the whole country, the average incidence rate is less than half that in Helsinki: 119 cases per 100,000 inhabitants, according to THL.
In intensive care
On Saturday, the official number of patients hospitalized due to coronavirus nationwide dropped by 9 to 104 from the day before. And the number of people in intensive care units remained unchanged at 21.
According to a preliminary estimate by THL, around 4,800 people may have already recovered from the disease.
To date, Finnish laboratories have taken samples from approximately 165,600 people.
