Quarantine instructions for people exposed to COVID-19

What quarantine means?

You or your child have been exposed to a COVID-19 infection. A person who is exposed is someone who has been in close contact with a person infected with COVID-19, for which reason you/your child will be placed under quarantine, based on the Communicable Diseases Act (1227/2016). You will receive the information about your exposure either by phone or in a text message from infection tracking at Siun sote. You may also receive the information about the possible exposure through a school, a day-care centre, a hobby group or a supervisor at work.

If your exposure has occurred outside your own family, the other members of the family who have not been exposed to the infection and who do not show symptoms, are not in quarantine, and may move about normally, while avoiding unnecessary contact. If you get symptoms, it is recommended that the people living in the same household with you also avoid unnecessary contact.

While under quarantine you must be accessible to health care and monitor your own symptoms. Possible symptoms begin within 1-10 days after exposure, usually in 5-6 days.
If you or your other family members show symptoms including cough, fever, breathing difficulties, headache, disturbances in the senses of smell or taste, flu symptoms, nasal congestion, a feeling of weakness, fatigue, muscle pain, sore throat, scratchiness of the throat, nausea, vomiting, or diarrhoea, a COVID-19 sample will be taken.

Testing is not recommended for persons without symptoms until after 6 days have passed from the exposure. You must repeat the test if you get symptoms later. Book the appointment for the COVID-19 test primarily through the Omaolo service: Coronavirus symptom checker (omaolo.fi)

Quarantine:

• Quarantine means avoiding outside contacts. The aim of this is to prevent further infections if the person under quarantine were to fall ill with a coronavirus infection.

• The quarantine is usually in force for 10 days from the most recent exposure.

• The last day of quarantine will be notified to you by phone, in a text message or by email when you are placed in quarantine.

• In family exposures, the duration of the quarantine is 10 days starting from the beginning of the symptoms of the confirmed case, or in the case of those with an asymptomatic infection, from the day that the sample was taken. If two or more family members fall ill, the quarantine may continue for a maximum of 28 days (4 weeks).

• It is important to stay at home on the last day of the quarantine order.

• Based on case-by-case consideration, a quarantine may be lifted before 10 days have elapsed. The infection trackers will give you the instructions.

To be considered during quarantine:

You must avoid close contact with persons outside your own household and stay at home.

• No outside guests may come to your home.

• Exercise good hand hygiene and take care when coughing.

• You may go outside to walk a dog, for example, if no other arrangements are feasible. Even when you are outside, you must avoid close contact with others.

• If you live in an apartment building, use a mask in public stairwells. Do not go into a lift if there are other people in it.

• Avoid touching things in a lift or a public stairwell. Make sure that you have recently washed your hands, or wear gloves when you need to touch the buttons of a lift, for example.

• If exposed to the disease, you must not visit places outside the home, such as shops, pharmacies, your place of work, school, day care centre, or a recreational venue, because it is difficult to avoid close contact in such places.

• A delivery service or the help of a friend can be used for ordering food and medicines. Goods delivered to the home are left outside the front door. The person under quarantine must keep a distance of at least two metres to the person making the delivery.

• If other people live in the same household, avoid close contact and keep enough distance, if possible. For example, if there are two toilets in the home, the person who is ill should use their own.

If you or your family have pets

• Good hygiene must be exercised caring for animals – for example, washing hands before and after the handling of animals or their food and equipment.
• Close contact with animals, for example, kissing them, should be avoided.
• If possible, a healthy person should deal with the daily care of pets.
• Further information: www.ruokavirasto.fi/teemat/koronavirus-covid-19/

Communicable Diseases Act (1227/2016)

• As a generally hazardous communicable disease is involved, a doctor responsible for communicable diseases working for the municipality or hospital district can order a person to be quarantined.
• Isolation ordered by a doctor specialising in communicable diseases is not a recommendation – it is an official decision. It is based on evidence, or a well-founded suspicion that the person has been exposed to a disease.

Communicable disease allowance:

• Kela may pay you a communicable disease allowance for loss of income resulting from being required to stay away from gainful employment, isolated, or quarantined.
• The guardian of a child under the age of 16 can also be paid a communicable disease allowance if the child has been ordered to stay at home to prevent the spread of the communicable disease, leading to the loss of income for the guardian.
• Further information www.kela.fi → Tartuntatautipäiväraha

Quarantine decision

For the quarantine decision, fill in the patient information form for persons exposed to COVID-19 and send it to infection tracking using the secure return link. You will find the link in the patient information form. The form is available only in Finnish. If you cannot send the information by email, the infection trackers will contact you in the next few days. Wait for them to contact you, as infection tracking becomes congested when group exposure situations occur.

You will find the patient information form at www.siunsote.fi/ohjeita-tartunnan-saaneelle-ja-altistuneelle, under ”Tartunnalle altistuneen esitietolomake”.

The quickest way to send the quarantine decision to you is by secure email. For the email, we will need your email address and, for an underage child, the parent’s email address and personal identity code. To open the email, you need to perform strong identification (online banking ID). If it is not possible for you to open a secure email, the quarantine decision will be sent in a letter to your nearest Posti service point. You must collect the decision from Posti in person (a power of attorney is not accepted). The decision sent to an underage person can be collected by the guardian named in the decision.

In unclear matters, contact the infection tracking number 013 330 2111. The service uses a call back system, and the aim is to call you on the following working day at the latest.

Further information:

• Information on the disease: Coronavirus COVID-19 (THL) (in Finnish)
• www.thl.fi/korona (also in English)
• www.terveyskyla.fi search word korona (in Finnish)