Some restrictions on travellers arriving from China will be implemented early next week, Minister of Family Affairs and Social Services Krista Kiuru (SDP) told Yle on Saturday.
However mandatory pre-testing of passengers is a more difficult issue due to legal considerations, she said.
A day earlier, Kiuru said that Finland would start requiring passengers arriving from China to show a negative coronavirus test taken no more than two days earlier.
In addition, passengers and cabin crew will be required to wear face masks on flights from China.
Since October, Kiuru has been one of two cabinet members overseeing the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health, along with Minister of Social Affairs and Health Hanna Sarkkinen (Left).
According to Kiuru, Finnish authorities are hamstrung by a lack of information about what is really happening in China at the moment.
By implementing restrictions, she said, "we will be able to buy time for this information to be handed over from China."
Kiuru admitted that the planned restrictions cannot prevent the virus from entering the country.
She said that work has begun on random testing of arriving passengers and testing of aircraft wastewater during this long holiday weekend. She added that new mask guidelines should be ready very soon, probably early next week.
"The legal side of pre-flight testing is a more difficult issue, and a solution is being sought in cooperation with the Interior Ministry and the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health," Kiuru said.
"This is a question of what kind of virus we should expect on top of the current [healthcare] burden. The hospital workload is quite high, and of course EU countries are worried about how much additional burden there will be on the whole," she noted.
In late December, a senior expert at the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (THL) said there was no point in placing restrictions on travellers from China.
No decision on vaccine mandates soon
According to Kiuru, decisions on compulsory vaccinations for social and healthcare personnel are "on hold" and will not be completed before the elections in April.
"We're preparing to add this issue to the Communicable Diseases Act, but it won't happen overnight," she said. The current legislative term ends in late March.
Kiuru also wants all residents of Finland to be able to get Covid booster vaccinations if they want, because it has been quite a while since many received their previous jabs.
According to Kiuru, Finland and Ireland are the only EU countries that are not currently offering healthy members of the public the opportunity to be vaccinated through the public healthcare system.