Seven more deaths associated with the Covid-19 disease occurred in Finland in the past 72 hours, the Finnish health authorities reported on Monday 8 March.
According to the National Institute for Health and Welfare (THL), these fatalities brought the total death toll in Finland to 774 since the global pandemic started.
Most of the deaths (508) have been recorded in the capital region, the epicenter of the epidemic and the worst hit area.
THL also reported 1,618 new infections detected in the past 72 hours. Specifically, 648 new cases were diagnosed on Saturday 6 March, 511 on Sunday 7 March and 459 on Monday 8 March.
So far, the total number of cases diagnosed in the Nordic country amounts to 62,522, according to THL's tally.
New variants
By 8 March, a total of 1,295 cases caused by the recently described coronavirus variants have been identified in Finland. Of these, 1,223 are variants first detected in the UK, 71 are variants first detected in South Africa and 1 corresponds to the Brazilian variant..
At the time of writing this article, the number of people in hospital care was 251 nationwide. Of them, 37 were admitted to intensive care wards.
The country's incidence of new cases has increased slightly during the past week. According to THL, at the time of writing this article it was 146.9 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 Åland archipelago, where 411.1 new cases per 100,000 inhabitants have been diagnosed in the past 2-week period.
In the Helsinki-Uusimaa area, the most populated part of the country, the incidence for the preceding 14 days was 300.2 new cases per 100,000 inhabitants. The incidence of new cases in Southwest Finland (Turku and surroundings) was 192.4 new cases per 100,000.
In the Lapland hospital district, the incidence of new cases was 52 per 100,000 residents.
