Yesterday’s news was abuzz with speculations over a US citizen in Finland possibly having contracted the deadly Ebola virus, and papers carry details of the facts so far. Tampere daily Aamulehti leads with headlines calling the virus suspicion “probably unfounded” and other papers also cite the low likelihood of the virus having been transmitted in the current circumstances.
Although the man being treated in Meilahti, Helsinki, recently returned from Liberia, AL explains away virus fears by saying that the patient had no known contact with Ebola-carrying individuals and that the person did not present symptoms until three weeks after leaving the African risk zone.
“Ebola is very likely to take hold in the first ten days after contact,” Red Cross expert Tiina Saarikoski says in the paper. “Twenty-one days is the maximum life cycle of the virus.”
Major daily Iltalehti is slightly more alarmist in its report, describing the Meilahti hospital as being on “full alert” – but the small column’s ingress admits that the odds of the disease being present are tiny.
Poisoning rocks community, but level crossing deaths zero
The same IL page goes into detail about two nurses who were arrested yesterday in Salo on suspicions of murder. The story says the small village of Koski is very disturbed over allegations that two of the community members, a nursing couple, killed an 84-year-old woman and embezzled her money. Head of investigation Pertti Läksy is quoted in the article as saying that the couple tried to grab more than 200,000 euros through the woman’s will and testament.
“They also went after another elderly widow,” Läksy says in IL, “but thankfully she was on her toes. They took 5000 euros from her, but she’s lucky nothing worse happened to her.”
Iltalehti also goes into detail about last week’s murder-suicide in Rautavaara, with police still investigating the 33-year-old mother’s motive for killing herself and her three children. Amid murders and deadly viruses, however, top daily Helsingin Sanomat reports that not a single person has perished this year on level crossings, used to cross train tracks by car and foot. If the positive trend continues, it would mean the first-ever year in Finland’s railway history that no one died on the dangerous crossings.
The positive slant comes with news of the crossings – of which there are still some 800 in the country – being decommissioned at a slowing rate. HS reports that while many years in the past two decades have seen an average of 140 level crossing removals, this year a mere 45 will be taken down and replaced with safer passageways like pedestrian tunnels under tracks.
“Funding for Finland’s track system’s upkeep is sliding lower and lower,” says Siru Koski from the Finnish Transport Agency. “We just don’t have the money to handle these crossings right now.”
Espoo city funds: Out with kids, in with the Metro
In other track and money-related news, HS features a spread on the city of Espoo and its spending plans for next year. The city’s budget proposal, filed yesterday, is raising eyebrows, as the much-awaited “west Metro” (Länsimetro) connection seems to be going ahead at the expense of kindergartens and schools.
The article says that underage children are one of the booming population groups in the city right now, and that while the Metro and a proposed new hospital will be realised with the new funding plan, children will have to get used to even tighter spaces as Espoo privatises its nurseries and rents out spaces for them to operate in. The city is also encouraging parents to use outdoor play parks, which are cheaper for the city.
“We shouldn’t be pulling the rug out from under the new generation,” Green League council group leader Inka Hopsu says in the HS piece. “Schools also need to be renovated quicker, so that sudden problems don’t crop up and lead to even higher expenditures.”
Edit: the patient with a suspected case of Ebola is not Finnish, but form the United States.
