Thread by @jukka235

Finland's epidemic 23 Dec 2025: amount of virus in wastewater appears to have risen above the first Omicron wave. Post-Omicron baseline is permanently higher than pre-Omicron; repeated waves are showing no diminishing.
1/x

Post-Omicron baseline is permanently higher than pre-Omicron
- before late 2021, levels were mostly 10³–10⁴.
- from 2022 onward, even troughs sit around 10⁵, or 10-100x higher
- C19 has become endemic
- constant background transmission, even outside waves
2/x

Repeated large waves in 2023–2024, not diminishing. Notable peaks:
- Apr 2023
- Nov 2023 (highest for the entire pandemic)
- Dec 2024

These peaks are:
- comparable to or higher than Omicron 2022
- evidence against a simple “each wave gets smaller” narrative
3/x

Public perception vs reality gap

Despite much lower public attention after 2022:
- viral circulation in 2023–2025 often equals or exceeds Omicron 1 levels

This highlights:
- Surveillance fatigue ≠ virus disappearance
- Policy and media attention are diverging from epidemiological reality
4/x

Finland has transitioned from pandemic waves to a high, seasonally surging endemic state, with:
- persistent high baseline
- winter peaks rivaling early Omicron
- surveillance, media attention down
- 100s of diseases showing remarkable patient growth across all age groups; no growth before 2020
5/x

It's an endemic alright. The key point is the floor virus level (around 10⁵) post-Omicron.
6/x

It looks that they got the endemic both they and WEF (Davos) spoke about in 2021. But I guess they were not planning for this across-the-board increase of hundreds of diseases across all age groups. There is nothing endemic in this graph about all 1704 ICD-10 diseases.
7/x

In fact, we’re seeing exponential growth in patient numbers across all disease and age groups in Finland. The trend is strikingly linear on a log scale, with no sign of any slowdown since 2020.

No health system can take this for long. It's just a matter of time.
8/x

I have covered the top level disease groups (called chapters) from A to R. These divide into 1393 disease categories reported by THL (and me) and further into approx. 10500 individual diseases or conditions (not reported). (I call disease categories "diseases".)
9/x

There is hope that wastewater analysis will continue to improve. Finland normally wants to be the model student in EU.
10/x

Here is the graph with 2-, 3-, and 4-year averages. The troughs and peaks don’t usually fall in the same months every year, so the average needs to capture a period longer than one year.
11/x

These are the most common disease groups in the total population by patient count. All of them are up, with an average rise of 47% since 2020.
12/x

All of the top 30 most common disease groups are showing patient growth between 2020 and 2025e. Fastest growth:
- behavioural/emotional disorders (incl. ADHD) (28% per year = 10x in 9.2 years)
- metabolic disorders (15.7% per year)
- middle ear and mastoid (14.8% per year)
13/x

These are disease groups showing fastest patient growth in total population. Among them:
- the 2nd fastest growing disease in Finland: POTS (Postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome, G90) in Other disorders of the nervous system (G90-G99)
14/x