Finland's COVID-19 policy saved approximately 2,600 people from death

The coronavirus pandemic is far behind us, and the SARS-CoV-2 virus that caused it has become just a part of everyday life. Therefore, it is a good time to look back a bit and examine the statistics related to the pandemic.

Among these, death cases are naturally the most reliable, so I will focus on that in this review. On a global level, the pandemic has been reported to have caused slightly over seven million premature deaths.

Is this then a lot or a little? This can be determined by comparing the number of deaths to previous pandemics.

The Spanish flu, caused by the influenza virus, is estimated to have killed 17-100 million people worldwide just over a hundred years ago. This is already a significantly higher number – and considering the increase in the world's population over the past hundred years – it is an astonishingly worse pandemic.

An even harsher ordeal was the bacterial disease known as the Black Death that raged during the Middle Ages. According to Wikipedia, it is "estimated to have killed 30-60 percent of Europe's population, i.e., 25-50 million people, and an equal number in the Middle East and North Africa."

The essential difference between COVID-19 and the aforementioned diseases lies in the advancement of medicine, which enabled the identification of people infected with the coronavirus – and their isolation from spreading it to others – as well as the development of vaccines and treatments that effectively reduced mortality. Therefore, it is clear that if the virus had spread to people a hundred years ago, the impact would have been significantly more devastating than what we have experienced now.

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One interesting topic of discussion has been the difference between Finland's strict and Sweden's more lenient COVID-19 policies. This can be examined by comparing the number of deaths caused by the virus in both countries.

Statistics show that a total of 27,407 people have died from the virus in Sweden. In Finland, the corresponding number is 11,958. The relationship between these numbers can be compared to the population ratios of the two countries. It is seen that about 2.1 per mille of the population died in Finland, and 2.6 per mille in Sweden.

Thus, it can be said that Finland's stricter COVID-19 policy, compared to Sweden, saved approximately 0.5 per mille – or roughly 2,600 lives – from death caused by the coronavirus. Therefore, the difference is not very large, and I do not take a position here on whether it is sufficient to compensate for the negative effects of the policy implemented.

Instead, I state that humanity should continue to prepare for the emergence of zoonotic diseases. Their occurrence cannot be predicted precisely, but it is certain that a new pandemic will occur sooner or later. And therefore, perhaps the most important lesson from the COVID-19 pandemic is that with good prior planning and preparedness, Finns can be spared the confusion witnessed during the coronavirus pandemic.

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A factory of five billion mosquitoes

The Nature magazine published a news article stating that Brazil is planning to build a mosquito factory to produce five billion mosquitoes per year, which are intended to be released into the wild.

These are not just any mosquitoes, but winged insects that carry a certain bacterial infection. As a result, these mosquitoes do not function as efficient carriers of the virus that causes dengue fever.

Therefore, the market for these mosquitoes is in places where this viral disease occurs, such as Australia, Brazil, Colombia, Indonesia, and Vietnam, where it is hoped that the released insects will pass on the bacteria in a way that even their naturally occurring counterparts are no longer able to transmit viruses.

The method has been tested before the decision to build the factory was made. The best results were achieved in a trial conducted in Indonesia, where releasing bacteria-carrying mosquitoes into the wild reduced dengue fever cases by as much as 77 percent. In other trials, the number of people with the disease also decreased, but less so.

It remains to be seen whether the mosquito factory will succeed in improving human health, and what kind of market will open up for a factory producing bacteria-carrying mosquitoes.

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Evolution in action

The yellow fever mosquito is responsible for spreading yellow fever, Zika, chikungunya, and dengue viruses, leading to hundreds of millions of infections each year. Although it previously showed no interest in humans and preferred other animals, a new genomic analysis has revealed that the ancestral mosquito species split about 5,000 years ago due to a drying climate in the West African Sahel, transforming the previously prevailing grassland landscapes into a desert.

Researchers compared mosquito genomes collected across Africa and Brazil and discovered another significant migration event when the insect spread from Africa to the Americas. This likely occurred around 1800, during the period when approximately 80 000 enslaved individuals were transported across the ocean annually. Yellow fever mosquitoes laid their eggs in water barrels and fed on the people aboard the ships.

In the absence of water bodies, some mosquitoes likely adapted to laying their eggs in water storage containers in communities, subsequently developing a preference for humans as a food source due to their increased availability compared to other mammals.

The investigation also unveiled rapid and ongoing evolution within the species, allowing for more efficient transmission of diseases in African cities. These evolving mosquitoes may explain recent changes in disease transmission patterns. 

For instance, Burkina Faso experienced its first modern dengue outbreak only seven years ago, yet the problem has resurfaced every year since. Additionally, Ouagadougou's mosquitoes quickly adapted to breeding in public hand-washing services installed during the COVID-19 pandemic.

It remains uncertain whether the evolving mosquito strains will spread beyond Africa. But is is clear anyway, that scientists now have an unprecedented opportunity to observe evolution in action.

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Leaders infected by a parasite

Toxoplasma gondii is an obligate intracellular parasitic protozoan that causes toxoplasmosis, which in humans is associated with a variety of neuropsychiatric and behavioral conditions. The parasite is capable of infecting virtually all warm-blooded animals,  but may undergo sexual reproduction only in felids (cats and its relatives). 

The parasite has been shown to increase rodents' chances of being preyed upon by felids by altering their behavior. As a consequence, rats that do not avoid cat habitations and are therefore more likely to become cat prey.

The famous Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming, USA, has a diverse carnivore community including gray wolves and cougars, intermediate and definitive hosts of the parasite, respectively. In a newly published investigation it was shown, that wolf territory overlap with areas of high cougar density was an important predictor of infection. 

In addition, wolves hosting the parasite were more likely to make high-risk decisions such as dispersing and becoming a pack leader, both factors critical to individual fitness and wolf vital rates. The change was considerable as the reported data showed that infected wolves were 11 times more likely than uninfected ones to leave their birth family to start a new pack, and 46 times more likely to become pack leaders - often the only wolves in the pack that breed.

The study did not provide data how this this behavioral modification of wolfs resulted in the parasite breeding in cougars, but according to the authors it is probable that the toxoplasmosis would create a feedback loop that increases spatial overlap and disease transmission between wolves and cougars. 

Taken together, the above described results show an example of unexpectedly complicated relationship between a parasite with its two hosts. The obvious question arising is the effect of toxoplasmosis on the behavior of humans. 

After all, it is very common. For example in the United States, approximately 11% of people have been infected, while in some areas of the world this is more than 60%. The infection rate in Finland is ca. 15%. 

Despite this, there is no scientific information about the parasite´s behavioral effect on infected humans. However, after reading the article linked above I would definitely be happy to see some research on the topic. 

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A popular hobby risks ecological balance, private property and human health in Finland

Ticks carry bacteria and viruses with them. The bacteria are causing Lyme borreliosis, which is a serious disease but can be treated with antibiotics. In contrast, some viruses may cause Tick-borne encephalitis (TBE), which is a serious tick-borne disease in Europe that can only be avoided by vaccinations.

Today it was informed that the number of TBE cases has increased considerably in Sweden and Finland due to the climatic change and and COVID-19 pandemic, the latter of which has brought people for outdoor activities. At least in Finland one of the main causes was not mentioned. That is the dramatically increased number of white-tailed and also roe deer, both of which act as hosts to ticks, and therefore enable higher population sizes of disease causing agents.

Deer populations also cause major damage to young forests by eating hardwoods and pines, which result in direct losses to forest owners as well as directs forest owners to plant spruces, which in Central Europe have been attacked seriously by beetles, and the same has been predicted to happen also in Nordic countries if the climates continue warming as predicted.

Hunting is, however, a popular hobby in Finland, and people involved are bringing huge amounts of food to the deer in wintertime, which increases considerably their population sizes. That maximizes the amount of animals for hunting but also their effect on the spread of tick-borne diseases and forest damages. 

For anyone looking from the side, it should be imperative to end the feeding of deer due to the vast problems they cause. And the common sense says, that white tailed deer should be removed from the country due to its nature as an alien invasive species. It simply is not sustainable to jeopardize ecological balance with an aggressively reproducing alien animal, put the health of lay people at risk nor damage their properties because of a hobby - no matter how enjoyable that may be.

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COVID-19 against Finland´s NATO plans

The president of Finland - Sauli Niinistö - has an infection of SARS-CoV-2. Fortunately, according to the announcement, his condition is good, and he continues working.

Timing of the virus infection was worst possible. That is, exactly in the middle of Finland´s preparation of its application to join NATO.  

There is no doubt that Russians and their trolls would not do their best to take advantage on the situation. An example was already given by a member of the House of Lords of the United Kingdom, Robert Skidelsky, who warned in Twitter that "application by Finland to join NATO would be a catastrophic mistake". 

Therefore I hope the infection would not affect President Niinistö´s activity in this task of utmost importance. But if it does, I hope he will share this duty with the Prime Minister Sanna Marin to get the NATO application submitted without any delay, but taking care of all preliminaries necessary. 

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American black population more vulnerable to the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2

The spread of the Omicron variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus has turned the number of COVID-19 cases up again. In Finland, the number of daily deaths have during the last weeks been the highest during the epidemic that started more than two years ago. Globally, however, the number of deaths were higher in January and May 2021. 

Omicron variant is known to cause less serious symptoms compared to previous variants of concern, and thus the death rate per the number of infections is lower. Therefore it was highly interesting to read from the Science magazine about research conducted in the USA on COVID-19 related differences between ethnic groups. 

The leading American science-journal reported that black adults were hospitalized for this disease at four times higher rate compared to white adults. The difference between the two groups was 40% versus 47% after two vaccinations and 44% versus 55% if they were given a booster. However, in both groups the hospital stays for Omicron were shorter compared to those caused by the previously common Delta variant, namely 5 days versus 4 days, and intensive care was not needed that often. 

The question that came to my mind was, whether this racial difference has something to do with the genes from archaic humans, Neanderthals, which do not occur in African groups of people. That was because it was previously noted that in the UK people with South Asian roots died for corona considerably more often that those associated with other ethnic groups - and the explanation was the genetic inheritance from the Neanderthals, which made them more susceptible for the virus. 

It was, however, also noticed that the same genes were rare among people of the easternmost Asia, possibly due to prehistoric selection caused by ancient viruses related to SARS-CoV-2. So, could it be possible, that most people with roots outside Africa, have some - yet unknown - genes associated with a higher tolerance to the Omicron virus? 

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