People in Finland are trying to make sense of how to move forward with their lives while social distancing, Yle journalists told Yle News' All Points North podcast.
You can listen to the full podcast via this embedded player, Yle Areena, Spotify, Apple Podcasts or your normal podcast player using the RSS feed.
Story continues after audio.
Katariina Luoma, online content manager for Yle's Finnish-language news, said the measures rolled out this past week were the most severe people had ever experienced.
"So many questions. So many questions in people's minds. They really want answers. It's very understandable. There have been such drastic measures that most people have never seen or witnessed during their own lifetime."
She added that people felt that matters concerning everyday life left room for interpretation.
"How do I work if I'm at home and have to take care of my two children? If I'm a hairdresser and I can't work from home, who pays me? Does anybody pay me? If you say that ten people are too many, how about buses? How about if I'm lining up in a bank or a hospital or for whatever reason? So many questions."
Finland's poor testing rate
One of the questions raised by APN listeners focused on the difficulty involved in getting tested for the virus. Yle foreign correspondent Mika Mäkeläinen said that until Thursday, it had been difficult to get a clear picture of how many people are being tested in Finland, as those figures haven’t been released on a daily basis
"But today we learned that so far during this pandemic... they said over 3,000 have been tested but I would say that’s only 3,000 -- that’s not a lot. The capacity for testing is now said to be 1,500 tests per day max and not all of that is being utilised," Mäkeläinen pointed out.
Mäkeläinen said the number of people being tested is rising quite rapidly, but added that he was surprised that officials downplayed the importance of testing as recently as last week and during this week. He speculated that this was because the testing capacity did not exist.
“If we look at the recommendations of the WHO and other international bodies, they point out to keep on testing, testing, testing. Beating the virus, it's essential to know how the virus is spreading. And to me it’s very obvious that in Finland we lacked the capacity until now," he declared.
“If you’re not working in the health care system or if you’re not directly coming from an area that’s been a focus in this epidemic, then it’s very difficult for you to get tested,” he added.
Fighting anxiety
"As someone living alone, my life is dependent on daily social events outside the house to prevent loneliness," Facebook user Martin-Éric Racine wrote.
"Now that all public locations are closed, all trainings I had signed up for are cancelled and most cafés are either closed or considering doing so, my social life is 100% gone," he added.
The discussion also explored a shifting social order in which previously undervalued parts of the workforce really are essential in times of crisis.
"The people that keep the shops stocked and the deliveries going are the real critical workers," Mäkeläinen said, downplaying the role of white-collar workers right now.
Join the conversation
If you have any questions or would like to share your thoughts, just contact us via WhatsApp on +358 44 421 0909, on our Facebook or Twitter account, or at [email protected].
This week's show was presented by Denise Wall and Egan Richardson and produced by Zena Iovino and Mark B. Odom. Our sound designer and audio engineer this week was Laura Koso.
