Coro­n­avirus Vaccines

Has been updat­ed on the 26th of Feb­ru­ary 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). Per­sons younger than 70 will be vac­ci­nat­ed using AstraZeneca’s vac­cine, while per­sons old­er than 70 will receive Pfizer-BioNTech’s vaccine.

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

• persons over the age of 80 who live at home as well as with informal caregivers and other elderly persons (over the age of 70, e.g. husband/wife) who live in the same household.
• 18-69-year-old persons who belong to risk group 1. Appointment booking for this group opens in the electronic Omahoito service on Friday 26th of February 2021 at 12 p.m. and on Soite’s phone line for appointment booking on Tuesday 2nd of March 2021. Persons who belong to risk groups will no longer be personally contacted about coronavirus vaccinations: instead, everyone has to book an appointment themselves. Those who belong to a risk group must be prepared to prove they belong to the risk group at the vaccination site (e.g. by showing your Kela card or a copy of your epicrisis or prescription). Persons under the age of 18 (i.e. 16-18-year-olds) who belong to risk group 1 are vaccinated at the Children's hospital (Lastensairaala/Barnsjukhuset).
• Appointment booking for vaccinations for 75-79-year-old persons who live in Soite's area opens on Tuesday 2nd of March 2021 at 12 p.m. both in the electronic Omaolo service and on the phone line.

Link: Soite’s coro­n­avirus indicator

Fol­low the progress of the vac­ci­na­tions in Soite’s chan­nels online and in social media so that you know when it’s your turn to get vaccinated.

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.

An appoint­ment for a vac­ci­na­tion can be booked either elec­tron­i­cal­ly or by phone:

• booking by phone: 06 828 7488. Open on Tuesdays from 12 a.m. as long as appointments are available. At other times, those who call will hear a message on the phone. An appointment can be booked by phone on behalf of an elderly person.
• electronic booking online: Soite's Omahoito service
  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. 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)

The elec­tron­ic book­ing works more smooth­ly and we rec­om­mend that appoint­ments are booked online if pos­si­ble. 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.

Ini­tial­ly, only a small num­ber of appoint­ments are avail­able because of the lim­it­ed sup­ply of vac­cines. Appoint­ments will be added as soon as more vac­cines arrive in Soite’s area. Appoint­ment book­ing opens every Tues­day at 12 p.m. as long as vac­cines are available.

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.

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: Terjärv child health clinic (neuvola/rådgivning), Hörbyntie 2, 68700 Teerijärvi)
• Perho (place: the health station, Vanhainkodintie 20)

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 observe:

• 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.
• 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).

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 the nose cor­rect­ly. This is why these prac­tices are always important.

Infor­ma­tion about the coro­n­avirus vaccine

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)