There is usually no need to be tested for mild symptoms – avoid contacts for five days and follow instructions in force in your area

The Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (THL) has updated its instructions for the public on coronavirus testing and quarantines in areas where comprehensive contact tracing is not possible. The instructions are recommendations made for the ongoing epidemic situation, which apply to both the vaccinated and the unvaccinated.

Coronavirus infections have greatly increased, with the spread of the Omicron variant through Finland. This has led to backlogs in contact tracing in many municipalities. In such a situation a large portion of those who have been infected or exposed cannot be reached in time, and tracing is of no use in preventing infections.

The coronavirus vaccines that are in use offer good protection against severe coronavirus disease and most of those who are infected get a mild version of the disease from the Omicron variant.

If you are basically healthy and you have mild respiratory symptoms and your general sense of health is good, there is usually no need to contact health care services, or to make an appointment for a coronavirus test at health care services. However, THL recommends that you should voluntarily avoid contact with people who do not live with you in the same household for at least five days.

If the instructions for seeking a coronavirus test in your municipality differ from those in this recommendation, follow the local instructions. These instructions are published on the websites of municipalities and health care districts. If you get personal instructions from health care services on questions such as applying for a test, isolation, or quarantine, follow those instructions rather than the THL guidelines.

Contacts should be avoided by people with symptoms, even if a home test gives a negative result

If you wish, you may take a home test. However, if you have symptoms, it is important to avoid contacts for at least five days even if the home test gives a negative result. If the symptoms last longer than three days, we recommend avoiding contacts with others until you have been without symptoms for at least two days.

If the home test gives a positive result, there is usually no need to confirm the result with a test conducted by public health services.

If you live in the same household as someone who has had a positive result from a home test, or if you live with or are otherwise in close contact with someone who has had a positive result in a test conducted by health care professionals:

• If possible, avoid contact with people outside your home until five days have passed from the onset of the symptoms of the person who is ill. If several family members fall ill, the five-day period is counted from the day that the last one who became ill got symptoms.
• Use a face mask when you go outside your home. 
• Stay home and work remotely if it is possible. If you are completely symptom-free, you can go to work if you wear a face mask and avoid contacts. 
• A child without symptoms may go to school or day care when five days have elapsed from when a family member who has fallen ill got their first symptoms.

Inform people with whom you have been in close contact about your illness. Ask those who have been exposed to an infection to voluntarily avoid contact for five days from when you last met, to use face masks, and to observe good hand hygiene when they meet other people. Infectivity can begin already two days after the onset of symptoms.

In certain situations, there is still good reason to be tested by health care services

Sign up primarily for a health care services coronavirus test if you have symptoms suggesting a coronavirus infection, and if

• a health care professional has recommended a test, or if
• you work in customer, or patient services in social and health care, or if
• you work at any job in a 24-hour facility for elderly care or services for the disabled, or if
• you are part of an at-risk group for severe coronavirus disease, or if
• you are pregnant.

Always contact health care services without delay if your condition requires it.

Further information

Coronavirus tests and avoiding contact in areas with a backlog for testing and tracing
(THL)
 
Otto Helve
Chief Physician
THL 
[email protected]