The number of infections and the number of patients in hospitals’ intensive care units across the country have been on the rise for the past three weeks.
Commenting on the situation to the media, the Head of Infectious Diseases at the Helsinki University Hospital (HUS) Asko Järvinen said the reason for the rising numbers is the appearance of new variants.
The latest and the most common one among new patients, ”Kraken”, is a combination of two former variants. It is described as highly infectious and capable of penetrating through vaccine immunity.
Due to less testing, the actual number of those infected is but an academic guess. As always, most at risk are elderly people and those with chronic or multiple diseases. However, the symptoms most people experience are usually mild and hospital care is not a necessity, Järvinen said.
According to him, there is no reason for alarm. Based on experiences from previous years, the current ”end of spring epidemic” should subside by the start of summer.
(Pekka Vänttinen | EURACTIV.com)
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