The number of lab-confirmed coronavirus infections in the Helsinki metropolitan area has doubled over the latest two-week monitoring period, with the highest number of cases found among young adults aged 20-39, according to information released by Helsinki and Uusimaa Hospital District (HUS) on Friday.
HUS’s Deputy Chief Medical Officer Eeva Ruotsalainen told Yle that the district is concerned by the spike in cases among younger people.
"Youth is not a protection against serious illness," Ruotsalainen said. "They are however less likely to end up in hospital and intensive care, so we are not seeing the numbers there. We cannot yet assess the escalation of the situation, as hospitalisation usually occurs after a delay of seven to ten days."
In the HUS district, the number of lab-confirmed positive cases as a proportion of samples taken is between 0.2 and 0.7 percent, meaning the critical limit of 1 percent has still not been exceeded.
However, the source of the infection has not been identified in more than half of the HUS district’s cases. Usually when the source is known, it has been a person living in the same household.
"In recent weeks, the sources of infections have been a relatively large number of Finns who have returned to Finland from abroad, or people coming for seasonal work," Ruotsalainen said.
Mass exposures on the rise
Mass exposures to the coronavirus have been on the increase in Finland since mid-July, Ruotsalainen said, with construction sites, cruise ship travel and parties organised by private individuals cited as examples of exposure hotspots.
"There has been one occasion where 11 of the 23 participants at a party were found to be positive. In some situations, we are close to the level of last spring, when people became very sick and even tragically died. Therefore, we will closely monitor the sources of infections," she said.
There have also been incidents of mass exposures in health care, as well as cases in which a staff member or child at five separate kindergartens exposed others.
More staff required to meet demand for tests
Currently about 3,000 samples per day are analysed for coronavirus in the HUS area, with the district hopeful of raising that figure to 4,000 in the near future.
The demand for tests has doubled and even tripled in recent weeks, which HUS's Director of Diagnostics Lasse Lehtonen told Yle has been too fast a pace for the district’s current resources, and that extra staff will be needed.
"If the number is to be increased nationwide to 20,000 or more, consideration must be given to keeping other medical facilities fully open or whether staff can be dispatched from elsewhere to perform coronavirus testing," Lehtonen said, adding that he believes a second wave of the pandemic can be prevented.
