Incidence of Covid-19 doubled in Finland in the last two weeks

Finland registered 222 new coronavirus infections on Tuesday 6 July, according to figures released by the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (THL).

According to the health agency, the total number of Covid-19 cases registered since the beginning of the pandemic in the Nordic country now rises to 96,791.

Currently, 41 people remain hospitalized in Finland due to Covid-19 infections. Of these, 9 are admitted to intensive care wards.

The incidence of the disease has doubled in the last two weeks, although it remains at relatively low levels compared to other European countries.

As of Tuesday, at the time of writing this article, the incidence of Covid-19 in Finland was 39.4 new cases per 100,000 inhabitants.

In the previous two-week period the incidence was 19.4 per 100,000 residents, according to THL.

The incidence is higher (66.2 cases per 100,000 inhabitants) in the Helsinki and Uusimaa region than elsewhere in the country.

Delta variant

Similarly, the total number of diagnosed cases in the country has doubled. During the last two weeks, 2,182 new infections have been detected, compared to 1,076 in the previous 14 days.

Health authorities have linked this sharp increase to travel by soccer fans to Russia to watch Euro 2020 matches.

Most of those infected football fans contracted the Delta variant, first detected in India and now prevalent in Russia, THL confirmed last week.

Finland reported death data for the last time last Wednesday. To date, 973 people have died in the country related to the Covid-19 disease.