Finland’s PM apologises after going out clubbing despite Covid contact
The Finnish Prime Minister has apologised after going clubbing despite being told she’d been in contact with someone who had Covid.
Sanna Marin, 36, was pictured in a crowded nightclub on Saturday even though she’d been in a meeting with her foreign minister, Pekka Haavisto, who later tested positive.
Ms Marin, the world’s youngest Prime Minister, said she thought she didn’t have to isolate as she was double-vaccinated.
Officials sent her a notification advising she avoid contact with others but she missed it because she’d left her work phone at home.
A gossip magazine said the social democrat leader had stayed up dancing in the Helsinki nightclub until almost four in the morning.
‘I did wrong. I should have considered the situation more carefully,’ Ms Marin said in a television interview by public broadcaster Yle on Wednesday night.
She’d earlier written on Facebook: ‘My husband and I… had been out to eat, been shopping in town, seen friends and also spent time [enjoying] the evening and nightlife.’
She said she was at a restaurant when she received a phone call from her state secretary informing her about the exposure.
‘He said ministers would not be quarantined because they all have been vaccinated twice,’ she explained.
It was only later that the Prime Minister’s office sent exposed ministers two text messages recommending that they avoid contact with other people but Ms Marin didn’t see it until the next morning.
She was not the only high-ranking politician in the country who continued with their plans despite the possible exposure.
Economic Affairs Minister Mika Lintila attended a floorball match between Finland and Latvia on Sunday and Defence Minister Antti Kaikkonen went to a dinner party on Saturday, despite all being in the same room with Haavisto the day before.
Ms Marin has since taken two Covid tests that were negative. Lintila and Kaikkonen have also tested negative.
The Finnish Health Institute recommends avoiding social contact while waiting for test results.
Finland has sustained some of Europe’s lowest incidences of the virus throughout the pandemic, recording more than 196,000 cases and 1,384 deaths in the country of 5.5 million.
However infections are now at an all-time high, with 308 new cases per 100,000 population in the last fortnight.
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