Finland recorded more deaths from suicide than from COVID-19 in 2020

Finland is one of the countries in Europe that has best managed to control the coronavirus pandemic, to the point that in 2020 there were more deaths from suicide than from COVID-19, according to data from the national statistical agency Tilastokeskus published this Friday.

Specifically, last year a total of 717 people took their lives in Finland, 73% of them men, while the COVID-19 pandemic caused 558 fatalities – 1% of all deaths – in this country of 5.5 million inhabitants, according to Tilastokeskus.

Despite the fact that there were 29 fewer suicides than in 2019, these figures show that mental health continues to be a serious problem in Finland, while indicating that the Nordic country has been able to minimize the effects of the pandemic.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), Finland is the European Union (EU) country with the lowest death rate from COVID since the start of the pandemic, with 254.5 deaths per million inhabitants, seven times less than Spain or France and five times less than Germany.

The Nordic country is also the third country that has registered the least deaths in relation to its population in the whole of the European continent, only behind Iceland (96.1 per million inhabitants) and Norway (211.3), according to the WHO.

However, at the moment Finland is immersed in the middle of the fifth wave of the pandemic and this Friday the health authorities announced that 1,781 new infections have been detected in the last 24 hours, the highest daily figure to date.

The notable increase in COVID infections and hospital admissions in recent weeks threatens to collapse intensive care units, whose occupancy has doubled since the end of October.

According to data from the Finnish National Institute of Health and Welfare (THL), 76.7% of the inhabitants of the Nordic country have received the first dose of the coronavirus vaccine, 72.7% the second, and 8% have received the third booster dose.

Despite this, the accumulated incidence in the last two weeks has grown to 319.7 cases per 100,000 inhabitants, 24% more than in the previous 14 days.

Finns have been known for decades to have one of the best lifestyles, which has led them to be chosen as the happiest country in the world four consecutive years: 2018, 2019, 2020 and this 2021 they have done it again, leading the ranking of the World Happiness Report, published by the Network of Solutions for Sustainable Development, a global initiative of the United Nations, marking the first time that a country has achieved this feat.