HS analysis Finland is now going its own way in the corona, and it makes the government’s way out of the omicron exceptionally difficult

In February 2020 Dutch professor dies Geert Hofstede did not quite have time to see how different nations responded to the global pandemic. However, he would have been endlessly interested in that.

In the 1980s, Hofstede, a study of IBM employees at the then-powerful company, created an indicator of the average attitude to power in different countries. Based on the questionnaire data, he divided countries into groups according to how respondents perceived the relationship between the individual and the community, hierarchies, tolerance for uncertainty, caring, long-term thinking, and enjoyment.

Hofstede’s metrics have rightly been criticized for being straightforward, but it says something. For example China is on the dashboard a highly collectivist country that values ​​hierarchy and hard performance over quality of life, encourages very long-term thinking, and has limited space for enjoyment. The United States, on the other hand, is more individualistic, more enjoyable, more alive in an instant, and alienating hierarchies.

According to Hofstede’s metrics, Finland is both Nordic and American. Finland is one of the individualist countries on a global scale, but mildly on a European scale. Unlike in the United States, in Finland the value of care is emphasized beyond performance and strength. However, in tolerating hierarchies and short-term thinking, Finland is closer to the United States than to France.

If it is cursed, the dictatorship and the waiver of the rights of the present will not sink in Finland as well as elsewhere in Europe.

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In Finland, the emphasis on the freedom of the individual through the corona has been considerably more and the interviewing of decision-makers has been seen less.

Although the metrics are partly outdated and tell nothing at all about individuals, it has come to my mind now that Europe is moving towards a post-omicron era. So many different discussions about the disease are going on now.

Minister of Justice of Finland Anna-Maja Henriksson (r) stated to HS on Mondaythat there is really no longer any justification for using a corona passport.

“The Koronapass restricts the fundamental rights of people who have not taken vaccines, obtained a negative test certificate or contracted a disease. The corona passport or vaccine passport is not so well suited for use at the moment, as it is now difficult to justify its necessity or proportionality, ”said Henriksson.

The Department of Health and Welfare (THL) has also talked about the uselessness of passports in the omikron era.

Many countries in Europe are going in a completely different direction. To Austrian homes letters began to arrive on Tuesday, which states that coronary vaccination must now be taken under penalty of a fine.

Unvaccinated people are driven out of society with vaccine passports in Germany, for example and France. The President of France Emmanuel Macron justified the vaccine passport in January on the grounds that he wants to “smell” by demanding it” [”emmerder”] for unvaccinated so long that the spike becomes of interest.

In Finland, the emphasis has been much more on the freedom of the individual through the corona and on decision-makers sniffing has been seen less. Even the law requiring Finnish nurses to vaccinate contains such large softenings that it is difficult to call it a total expulsion. As Europe moves towards the final display of the corona, this gap seems to be widening.

Finland freedom thinking matters for two reasons.

Firstly, the European Union, which has sometimes emphasized freedom of movement, will be in the least embarrassing situation if the practices of its Member States are completely different in the age of endemic corona.

In Finland, the strong incentive for additional vaccinations would disappear immediately if the passport were completely surrendered. Vaccine coverage would probably no longer grow at a sluggish rate. At the same time, there is only more pressure in Europe. Are Finns about to take an extra spike just because they get to the restaurant’s oysters on a summer vacation in France?

Although the national use of the corona passport belongs to the EU member states and not to the Union, the European line would also seem to be of interest to Finnish decision-makers. The original path is always harder to walk, no matter how much it would feel like life without a vaccine passport than the hierarchies that “smell” citizens.

Second Finns’ relationship with the government matters in the face of future government elections. Sanna Marinin (sd) the government is due to consider a new interest rate strategy on Wednesday, and negotiations should result in a way out of the omicron.

If there is no new variant of terror (the coronavirus has been unfortunately creative in this respect), the paper that will pop out of the negotiations may also be Finland’s way out of the whole epidemic.

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Are practical arrangements in healthcare really a reason to maintain severe restrictions on fundamental rights?

Until now, the government has acted in the true spirit of Hofstede and has been wary of strategic declarations that go too far. The pandemic has been managed for a few months or sometimes even weeks. On Monday, Marin noted the restrictions would be phased out as early as February.

It is also necessary to ask now what the justification for restrictions is if the corona passport is no longer a morally reasonable instrument. Are the practical arrangements for health care really the reason for maintaining severe restrictions on fundamental rights?

The government would like to look beyond its strategy in the coming weeks. Korona, which is circulating in society, will continue to demand treatment resources, and the focus should be on how the ailments of the disease are treated. There is a need for insight into how resources are distributed within health care so that closures are kept to a minimum. What is the role of the private, what is the role of the public? Is the regulatory framework for the rational use of resources certainly in order?

Tracing and quarantine The reality of omicron proved impossible a long time ago, and new basic principles are now needed to control and prevent the disease that is sweeping the population.

Logic is also to be expected from the lifting of restrictions. Finns who tolerate a bad “because that’s just the way it is now” type of regulation have pushed through the pandemic why they are allowed to drink beer but don’t go to the swimming pool. Better constraint synchronization is therefore needed.

However, the main problem may be the vaccine passport – especially if you look at the surrounding Europe. How does Finland prevent the corona if there is no passport? The question is difficult, but the government should be able to answer it.

However, Henriksson’s statement and the miserable fate of the coronary passport do not have to be interpreted as a weakness: perhaps Finland was the original land of Hofstede’s measures, which limited life in the face of coercion, but was also accurate in the crisis of individual freedoms.