Two more deaths associated with the Covid-19 disease occurred in Finland in the past 24 hours, the Finnish health authorities reported on Wednesday 24 March.
The recent increase in the number of patients in intensive care wards is cause for concern.
At the time of writing this article, the number of people in hospital care was 295 nationwide. Of them, 62 were admitted to intensive care wards.
According to the National Institute for Health and Welfare (THL), these 2 new fatalities brought the total death toll in Finland to 811 since the global pandemic started.
Most of the deaths (527) have been reported in the capital region, the epicenter of the epidemic and the worst hit area.
THL also reported 803 new infections detected in the past 24 hours.
New variants
So far, the total number of coronavirus cases diagnosed in the Nordic country amounts to 73,516, according to THL's tally.
By Wednesday 24 March, a total of 1,963 cases caused by the recently described coronavirus variants have been identified in Finland.
Of these, 1,823 are variants first detected in the UK, 139 are variants first detected in South Africa and 1 corresponds to the Brazilian variant.
The country's incidence of new cases continues to rise. According to THL, at the time of writing this article it was 172.8 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.
Currently, the highest incidence in Finland is in the Helsinki-Uusimaa hospital district (the capital area), where 346.7 new cases per 100,000 inhabitants have been diagnosed in the past 2-week period.
The incidence of new cases in Southwest Finland (Turku and surroundings) is 258 new cases per 100,000. In the Lapland hospital district, the incidence of new cases was 30.7 per 100,000 residents.
The incidence clearly decreased in the Åland archipelago compared to one week ago. At the time of writing this article it was 72.9 per 100,000 residents, significantly less than a week ago.
