Finland's Minister for Family Affairs and Social Services, Aki Lindén (SDP) spoke to newspaper Helsingin Sanomat about the worsening Covid situation in Finland.
The government's coronavirus working group met for the first time in four weeks on Tuesday.
"While no one proposed new restrictions, the general feeling of the meeting was one of concern," said Lindén.
There are currently around 900 patients in hospitals with Covid. As of Monday, 45 of those patients were in intensive care. When restrictions started being lifted in January, hospitals were treating about 600 such patients.
Lindén estimates that Covid treatment will continue to take up at least 10 percent of hospital capacities.
However, he reiterated that no new epidemic-related restrictions were in the works. His line-in-the-sand was if the number of patients rises above 1,500.
"1,500 patients would put us in a terrible situation," Lindén said.
The minister's message is that Covid has not dissipated and the epidemic continues. He advocates booster doses of vaccines and suggests people reconsider attending events with large crowds, especially if they have flu-like symptoms.
While the rest of Europe is facing a Covid spike, a similar wave has lagged in Finland. Lindén said that recent developments coming out of the United Kingdom are concerning. Despite widespread immunity bolstering public health resiliency, hospital workload remains high.
Finnish aviation struggles
Kauppalehti reports on the aviation industry's struggles. On the domestic front, regional flights have been on state-subsidised life support for the past two years.
After the Covid crisis began in the spring of 2020, Finnair stopped regional flights to Joensuu, Jyväskylä, Kemi, Kokkola-Pietarsaari, and Kajaani for six months. After that, the state began subsidising flights to Helsinki from those airports.
Additionally, the state began paying for flights from Helsinki to Savonlinna with the help from the southeastern town. Meanwhile the western city of Pori also helps fund a route to Helsinki.
Many of these airports were already struggling with declines in traffic prior to Covid, but the pandemic accelerated this trend.
"During the Covid period, these flights did not have enough demand for market-based traffic," Finavia CEO, Kimmo Mäki, told Kauppalehti.
The Finnish government has agreed to subsidise regional flights until mid August. After that, the goal is to shift towards a market-based approach.
Kauppalehti also reported on the aviation industry's response to effects from the war in Ukraine.
While flights to Asia have diminished as a result of Russian airspace closure, Finavia's long-term view is positive.
Russia's airspace ban is detrimental to Asian passenger traffic, but it is currently somewhat insignificant, as traffic on such routes continues to be reduced due to Covid restrictions.
"In European traffic, we are in a ramp-up phase and on an upswing," said the director of Helsinki Airport, Ulla Letjeff.
"Airlines currently see next summer as very hopeful and confident," she added.
Yle Nazi docuseries
Tabloid Iltasanomat columnist Iida Tani comments on controversy surrounding a new Yle documentary miniseries, Suomineidot (roughly, Finnish Maidens), which has received criticism for glorifying racism and Nazism.
"Suomineidot normalises hate speech, racism, and discrimination, in a way I don't remember seeing for a while," writes Iida Tani.
"Worst of all, the blatant racism seen in the program is disguised behind nationalism and patriotism," she continues.
Yle is under fire for producing and carrying the series, in which its subjects claim that non-white people are not Finns and that multiculturalism is damaging Finland. In publicity pictures for the series, one of the programme's female subjects is seen wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with the words 'National Socialist'.
National Socialism is the ideology that drove Adolf Hitler's government in the 1930s and 1940s. It resulted in the murder of millions of people and the attempted extermination of Jewish, Roma, Sinti and other minorities, along with the persecution of LGBT groups and other minorities and political opponents.
Yle's programme shows the woman going on a fishing trip, among other mundane activities.
Ville Vilén, Yle's creative director, defended the series in an Yle article published on Tuesday. He stated that nationalism and its related phenomena are not new, and that these people will not simply go away. Vilén argued that it is Yle's role to shine a light on these societal issues.
Tani agreed with Vilén, but added a caveat.
"Vilén is right. Sweeping things under the rug does not promote the debate that is still needed in Finland. However, the key is how the media presents things. A series in which openly racist people fall victim because life in today’s liberal society is so difficult is not the way to go."
Tani took issue with Yle's portrayal of the series' subjects, claiming that Yle painted them in too favourably.
"Racism and National Socialism are not synonymous with populism and conservatism. They are blatant human rights violations that should not be smoothed out or normalised."