Coro­n­avirus Vaccines

Has been updat­ed on the 16th of April 2021

Ini­tial­ly, small num­bers of vac­cines are received at a time. Soite car­ries out the vac­ci­na­tions in accor­dance with the strat­e­gy for COVID-19 vac­ci­na­tions in Fin­land (in Finnish).

PLEASE NOTE: We are expand­ing the tar­get group! Coro­n­avirus vac­ci­na­tions are now offered to all cit­i­zens in Soite’s area over the age of 60. More infor­ma­tion in the article.

Cur­rent­ly, the vac­ci­na­tions of the pop­u­la­tion are pro­gress­ing when it comes to fol­low­ing groups:

• everyone over the age of 60 in Soite’s area
• 18-64-year-old persons who belong to risk group 1 or 2 and have an illness or condition that is very highly or highly predisposing to severe coronavirus disease. More information on risk groups on the website of the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare THL. Be prepared to prove you belong to the risk group at the vaccination site (e.g. by showing their Kela card or a copy of their epicrisis or prescription). Informal caregivers to and persons close to persons who belong to a risk group and live in the same household do not have the right to vaccination at this stage.

Link: Soite’s coro­n­avirus indicator

Accord­ing to a pre­lim­i­nary plan, the coro­n­avirus vac­ci­na­tions con­tin­ue in dif­fer­ent age groups with five-year inter­vals. Each age group that is to be vac­ci­nat­ed con­sists of about 5000 per­sons in Soite’s area. We will inform about vac­ci­na­tions for new groups more specif­i­cal­ly later. 

Please fol­low Soite’s chan­nels on the web and in the social media as well as the local media in order to see when your age group has the right to a vaccination!

Book­ing an appoint­ment for a coro­n­avirus vaccination

Coro­n­avirus vac­cines are only giv­en to those whose turn it is to be vac­ci­nat­ed accord­ing to the nation­al vac­ci­na­tion strat­e­gy. Appoint­ment book­ing by phone opens every Tues­day at 12 p.m. as long as vac­cines are available.

An appoint­ment for a coro­n­avirus vac­ci­na­tion can be booked online or by phone. Vac­ci­na­tion appoint­ments are added to the elec­tron­ic appoint­ment book­ing always on Tues­days at 12 p.m., but also at oth­er times if appoint­ments are can­celled or if the num­ber of vac­cines sud­den­ly increas­es. The days that still have appoint­ments avail­able are marked with green colour in the web calendar.

Appoint­ment book­ing for a coro­n­avirus vaccination

• electronic appointment booking in the Omahoito service at https://soite.terveytesi.fi is open for all groups currently eligible for vaccination. More appointments are added on Tuesday at 12 p.m. Log on to the Omahoito service with your online bank user identifiers (or some other means of strong identification) in order to book an appointment for yourself. The days that still have appointments available are marked with green colour in the web calendar. You can book an appointment for another person if you have made an agreement regarding this. Read more: https://www.soite.fi/toisen_puolesta_asiointi (in Finnish).
• telephone booking on 06 828 7488 opens Tuesdays at 12 p.m. The telephone line is open as long as appointments are available. The line will be cut when the number of available appointments runs out. At other times, those who call will hear a message on the phone. You can also book an appointment for an elderly person by phone.

The elec­tron­ic book­ing works more smooth­ly and we rec­om­mend that appoint­ments are booked online if pos­si­ble. The elec­tron­ic appoint­ment book­ing is eas­i­ly over­bur­dened imme­di­ate­ly after the appoint­ment book­ing opens, so there may be prob­lems in the func­tion of the Oma­hoito ser­vice. The ser­vice func­tions nor­mal­ly when the num­ber of vis­i­tors decreas­es, so when the sys­tem is over­loaded, it is best to wait a moment and then reat­tempt using the elec­tron­ic appoint­ment booking. 

If an infor­mal care­giv­er or part­ner who lives in the same house­hold is vac­ci­nat­ed at the same time, the appoint­ment should be booked by phone for both persons.

We ask per­sons close to elder­ly per­sons to make sure they get an appoint­ment for a vac­ci­na­tion and are able to come to the vac­ci­na­tion site.

Appoint­ments will be added as soon as more vac­cines arrive in Soite’s area.

Appoint­ments are also avail­able in evenings and on week­ends. You can see the avail­able vac­ci­na­tion appoint­ments in the elec­tron­ic book­ing sys­tem. More vac­ci­na­tion times are added when more vac­cines arrive in the area. If it is not pos­si­ble for you to come to an appoint­ment you have booked, the appoint­ment can also be can­celled via the above men­tioned channels.

The appoint­ment book­ing only applies to the first dose of vac­cine. The appoint­ment regard­ing the boost­er dose is booked at the vac­ci­na­tion site dur­ing the first appointment.

Dur­ing the appoint­ment book­ing, per­sons are also placed in a queue. It is pos­si­ble to come to a coro­na vac­ci­na­tion from the queue if some­one can­cels their appoint­ment or if the vac­cine bot­tles yield more dos­es than expect­ed. Those wait­ing in the queue for their turn will be per­son­al­ly con­tact­ed on the day of the vac­ci­na­tion if the vac­ci­na­tion can be done that day.  A per­son who is wait­ing in the queue does not have to book a new vac­ci­na­tion appoint­ment; instead, they will be con­tact­ed by Soite and offered a vac­ci­na­tion appoint­ment placed in the fol­low­ing vac­ci­na­tion week.

Vac­cines

In Soite’s area, per­sons who belong to risk group 2 and are 18–64 years old as well as per­sons aged 60 to 64 will be vac­ci­nat­ed with mRNA vac­cines (Pfizer-BioNtech’s Comir­naty or Mod­er­na). Per­sons over the age of 65 are vac­ci­nat­ed with Astra Zeneca’s vac­cine in accor­dance with instruc­tions from The Finnish Insti­tute for Health and Wel­fare THL.

Please note! Excep­tions are per­sons over the age of 65 who have had a sinus throm­bo­sis or who have had a low platelet count in con­nec­tion with treat­ment with heparin (throm­bo­cy­tope­nia, HIT): these per­sons are vac­ci­nat­ed with mRNA vac­cines (Pfizer-BioNtech’s Comir­naty or Mod­er­na). If you have had such an ill­ness, please book your appoint­ment by phone.

Vac­ci­na­tion sites

You can choose to which vac­ci­na­tion site you book an appoint­ment. Because of the lim­it­ed sup­ply of vac­cines, ini­tial­ly only the fol­low­ing vac­ci­na­tion sites are used:

• Kokkola (place: Halpa-Halli’s old building, Kaarlelankatu 7)
• Kannus (place: seurakuntatalo (the parish house), Valtakatu 20)
• Toholampi (place: Seurakuntakoti (the parish house), Lampintie 7)
• Tunkkari and Kaustinen (place: health center, Mäntöläntie 2 and Pajala family center, Pajalantie 1, Kaustinen)
• Kruunupyy (place: Teerijärvi child health clinic (neuvola/rådgivning), Hörbyntie 2, 68700 Teerijärvi and Kruunupyy health station, Säbråntie 1, 68500 Kruunupyy)
• Perho (place: the health station, Vanhainkodintie 20)
• Halsua (place: the health station, Kauppisentie 12, 69510 Halsua)

Ini­tial­ly, it is pos­si­ble to book an appoint­ment only to these vac­ci­na­tion sites. More vac­ci­na­tion sites are opened, in accor­dance with the plans, as soon as the sup­ply of vac­cines increases.

Please note:

• Come to be vaccinated only if you are healthy and only to an appointment you have booked.
• Take your Kela card with you and take it out while you wait.
• If you belong to a risk group: be prepared to prove you belong to the risk group at the vaccination site (e.g. by showing your Kela card or a copy of your epicrisis or prescription).
• Wear clothes that make it easy to expose your upper arm.
• Use a face mask and disinfect your hands when you come and when you go.
• Keep a safe distance (2 metres) to other people while you wait.
• Be prepared to stay at the vaccination site for 15 minutes after the vaccination.

The vac­ci­na­tion is free and vol­un­tary. COVID-19 vac­cines offer effec­tive pro­tec­tion against the COVID-19 dis­ease and espe­cial­ly its severe forms. Accord­ing to cur­rent knowl­edge, COVID-19 vac­cines also work against mutat­ed virus vari­ants (source: THL).

Kela pro­vides com­pen­sa­tion for trav­el costs asso­ci­at­ed with COVID-19 vac­ci­na­tions 27th of March to 31st of Decem­ber 2021. More infor­ma­tion on Kela’s web­site.

Safe­ty mea­sures against the coro­n­avirus must be remem­bered even after vac­ci­na­tion — use of face masks will continue

After vac­ci­na­tion it is still impor­tant to main­tain social dis­tanc­ing, to prac­tise good hand and cough­ing hygiene, to use face masks when social dis­tanc­ing is not pos­si­ble, to be test­ed when symp­toms emerge, and to fol­low oth­er instruc­tions in fight­ing the coro­n­avirus. 

This is nec­es­sary because we do not have enough infor­ma­tion about how effec­tive­ly the vac­cine pre­vents trans­mis­sion. Guide­lines are amend­ed as new infor­ma­tion emerges, but at this time the same rec­om­men­da­tions apply to both vac­ci­nat­ed per­sons and those not pro­tect­ed by vac­ci­na­tion. This is in line with the pre­cau­tion­ary principle.

After the start of vac­ci­na­tions, it will still take a long time before immune pro­tec­tion at the pop­u­la­tion lev­el is achieved and the epi­dem­ic has been defeated.

Link: Trans­mis­sion and pro­tec­tion – coro­n­avirus (The Finnish Insti­tute for Health and Wel­fare, THL)

Every­one can help in the fight against the coro­n­avirus and oth­er infec­tious dis­eases by prac­tis­ing good hand hygiene and by cough­ing, sneez­ing, and blow­ing their nose cor­rect­ly. This is why these prac­tices are always important.

Infor­ma­tion about the coro­n­avirus vaccine

Safe­ty of COVID-19 vaccines

The Finnish Med­i­cines Agency Fimea and the Finnish Insti­tute for Health and wel­fare THL mon­i­tor the adverse effects and the safe­ty of the COVID-19 vac­cines care­ful­ly — no sur­pris­ing adverse effects have come to light  (THL, in Finnish)

Ques­tions and answers about the coro­n­avirus vac­cine (Finnish Insti­tute for Health and Wel­fare THL)

Ques­tions and answers about the coro­n­avirus vac­cine (The Finnish Med­i­cines Agency Fimea

Coro­n­avirus vac­cines in Fin­land (the Min­istry of Social Affairs and health)

Infor­ma­tion about the coro­n­avirus vac­cine (ECDC)