Up to 10,000 lives have been saved in Finland this year thanks to coronavirus vaccinations, according to Mika Salminen, Director of Health Security at the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (THL).

Speaking at a press briefing on Wednesday, Salminen said that the Covid-19 pandemic has moved on to an endemic phase, meaning that it remains constant at a baseline level within the population.

In Salminen's view, the situation in Finland differs from that in the rest of Europe.

"There has been a clear summer epidemic peak in Europe, which is now on the decline," he told reporters in Helsinki.

There has been some increase in the number of infections over the last few weeks, he explained. Most of the rising case numbers are outside the heavily populated capital region.

"About every six months, a new virus variant has appeared, which replaces the old variant quite quickly," Salminen noted, adding that he expects the trend to continue.

"The BA.5 omicron variant has become the mainstream virus at the moment," said Salminen.

"There has been some increase in the need for hospital care recently, but no increase in intensive care patients," he said. "That's good news: at the moment, patients don't seem to be as ill as before. The downward trends have continued since the peak last April.

"According to a rough estimate, up to 10,000 lives may have been saved this year alone thanks to vaccinations," said Salminen.

THL has studied more than 4,400 death certificates in which a coronavirus infection is recorded as the cause of death or as a contributing factor in the fatality. Coronavirus infections were listed as the basic cause of death in more than 2,800 cases.