Some 100,000 people in the capital region are unvaccinated, according to Helsingin Sanomat. Public health institute THL’s figures show that people under 40 make up the majority of this group.
Residents with foreign backgrounds less likely to be vaccinated against Covid than native Finns, Lasse Lehtonen, Director of Diagnostics at the Helsinki and Uusimaa hospital district (HUS), told the paper.
The most common foreign languages in the Helsinki region are Russian, Estonian, Somali and Arabic.
HS notes that among all population groups, lower levels of education correspond to vaccine hesitancy. Lehtonen noted that Russian-language propaganda criticises western Covid vaccines.
A recent survey by FARO, an organisation for Russian speakers in Finland, found that 70 percent of respondents were suspicious of Covid vaccines.
I was looking to see if there were follow-ups on booster shot studies. Two or three a day seem to be coming in. All are pre-prints, new the past 3 days, study size and quality varies, message is pretty consistent…
The effectiveness of the vaccines you got 6 months ago has faded with Omicron, but a booster dose of mRNA vaccine (Pfizer, Moderna) provides good protection against Omicron COVID. Booster shots is also good public health policy.
- Effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines against the Omicron (B.1.1.529) variant of concern : reports >90% effectiveness two weeks after a booster.
- Third BNT162b2 vaccination neutralization of SARS-CoV-2 Omicron infection : reports 100-fold boost to neutralization response against Omicron after booster.
- mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccine boosters induce neutralizing immunity against SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant : Omicron more infectious, boosters needed to get measurable immune response.
- Assessing impact of Omicron on SARS-CoV-2 dynamics and public health burden : Modelling study, indicates that booster shots are the best public health intervention
(details are thin on this one on the model methodology, but I’ll leave that for peer review to sort out.)
Ontario 
hit 12.4/100k cases today, 7-day average up 50% since last week. Earliest booster appointments I could get are end of the month… 
Back-channel info is that all schools are going on-line again here in January.
@anon29537550 Dr. Peter Jüni of the Ontario Science Table is quoted in a Toronto Star article yesterday:
“There is a myth out there that it’s mild,” Dr. Peter Jüni told media this week about the variant. “We need to address this myth now.”
The other shoe has dropped:
Not that it was a surprise or anything, no reason to think Moderna would fare any better than Pfizer, but there is now data showing that. I always feel better with data. Boosters for all!
It’s good that these studies are being done but they’re all laboratory studies using blood samples. Pretty soon we’ll have a lot of statistically-significant data on real people out in the world, and on that front I don’t like what I’ve seen so far.
From your second study:
I wish that increase was as awesome as it sounds, but as of Friday, the CDC reported that a third of the known US Omicron cases were among already-boosted individuals. So definitely not awesome for preventing infection but time will tell if it helps a lot to make symptoms milder.
Got mine yesterday, arm still hurts.
No other side effects noticeable.
Most of the 43 COVID-19 cases caused by the Omicron variant identified in the United States so far
We’ll be following that up, shortly no doubt, with a much bigger data sample if the “80% of cases …were due to Omicron” number holds in Ontario… 
Well, the Doc nailed it, did he?
Just FTR, I’ve been sadly pretty good at extrapolating from known knowns and known unknowns during this pandemic, I feel. Sometimes, this includes some political and societal fallout. I was sure the anti-vaxers and COVID-deniers would harbor neofascists, and as soon as they organise themselves the neofascists would try to take over the whole thing.
However, regarding death threats and terror attacks, I was pretty wrong so far in assuming that we would see someone channeling grief over lost loved ones and anger over irresponsible politics into violent hatred.
It’s remarkable, really. Those most harmed have refrained from lashing out at the people genuinely responsible; while those least harmed have caused and planned violence.
Just announced: Ontario 
is offering booster shots as of Monday, Dec 20, to those 18 and up, and lowering the delay to 3 months between shots. The mass vaccination clinics will be opening again. Rapid tests are being handed out all over the place.
Venues over 1000 people must, as of Saturday, operate at half capacity.
This all feels inadequate to me. At best (250k/day for 14.5m people) we’re looking at ~2 months to get boosters out and 2 weeks for them to become fully effective. Rapid testing is fine, if people do it and don’t ignore it. The measures won’t have traction for at least a month, at which point we’re in trouble (if we’re not already).
I don’t, personally, see anything short of a lockdown working…
What’s the availability of rapid tests in Canada? My understanding is that they could go a long way to controlling spread if the majority of people used them relatively frequently, but they are often hard to come by in the US and I don’t think there’s currently anywhere near enough production capacity to allow everyone to test themselves, say, twice a week. We should have seriously ramped up capacity a long time ago but nobody wanted to make that kind of investment when the demand for tests was so unpredictable.
Edit: apparently government regulators are partially to blame as well:
“Get a little shot in the arm” 
“Shoot to kill”.
my arm hurt for several days after the booster. i got moderna even though i had pfizer initially, so no idea if that affected things. no side effects other than the arm pain, but wow did that linger
TBH, I can’t imagine that the muscles like being poked very much, so it may not have anything to do with which vaccine one receives. To my body’s way of thinking, it might be like “repetitive trauma,” as it was the same arm each time.
i feel like it gives me new insight into every action and superhero movie.
get poked by a needle vs shot by a gun, impaled by an arrow, dropped off a building - i think id have to be, sorry world can’t save you. need to curl up on my couch for a few months. thanks
( my real superpower? asking other people to bring me tea and a blanket )
What’s the availability of rapid tests in Canada?
They have been pricey ($9/individual test) and hard to find. I can’t say I’ve ever seen one for sale, but all of a sudden we have 10 in the house.
The New Year’s “back to school” strategy involves the kids taking 5 tests over the 2 week winter break. The test is voluntary. The Ontario Science Table Brief for 9 Dec recommends a “test to stay” approach using rapid antigen tests for anyone with a COVID exposure. The brief observes that the early peak viral load of Delta makes rapid antigen tests a good “first check”; the antibodies show up sooner. The province, however, is recommending the tests only for individuals with no exposure.
But here’s the kicker:
The brief also says “Evaluation of the performance of rapid antigen tests for the diagnosis of the Omicron variant is urgently needed.”
Oh dear…
So the province has been sitting on 11 million or so rapid tests, all of which may now be less or (horrors) in-effective with Omicron? Is pushing them out the door a political move to be seen to be “doing something”?
I’m also struggling to think of a COVID outbreak instance where rapid testing has made a dent absent lock-down measures.
I’m feeling a little cross…
Edit: Manufacturer BTNX, in a statement Nov 28 (2 1/2 weeks ago) says “we anticipate that the Omicron variant will be detectable by the Rapid Response® COVID-19 Antigen Test Device”. It would seem time is of the essence here… I’d be all over this if it was my company.
IIRC Pfizer-BioNTech was still more effective, but the gap is narrower for Delta than for earlier variants.
OK so can we please have a custom Delta-and-Omicron vaccine, like this year’s updated flu shot
I don’t like how this is going
Omicron has enough variations from delta that it would indeed seem wise for the mRNA vaccine makers to push out an update.
