Coronavirus advice for Espoo residents

  • Share on Facebook
  • Share on Twitter
2020-05-25 9:00

On this website, the City of Espoo collects information about the coronavirus, its effects on the city’s operations and advice for Espoo residents. The website will be updated as the situation changes. Latest update: 19 May 2020 at 17.30.

The Government's press release 5 May 2020: Government decides on plan for hybrid strategy to manage coronavirus crisis and for gradual lifting of restrictions

Coronavirus Helpline and testing

  • If you suspect you have contracted the coronavirus, call Espoo’s coronavirus helpline, tel. 09 816 34600 (Mon–Fri at 7:00–18:00, closed 21 May). Outside these hours, please call the Medical Helpline, tel. 116 117. 
  • Everyone with symptoms of the coronavirus (fever, cough, sore throat, runny nose, shortness of breath, loss of smell/taste or diarrhea/abdominal pain without any other clear reason) can get tested. We will give you testing instructions on the phone.
  • SMS service for the hearing impaired at Samaria health centre, tel. 043 825 1811
  • You can also assess your symptoms at www.omaolo.fi and you will get instructions based on your symptoms.

Instructions for treatment at home:

The contact information of health service in other matters

Please notice that you can only visit a health centre if you have booked an appointment.

  • Appointment booking to Espoo health centres in other matters than corona, tel. 09 816 34500, Mon–Fri 7:00–18:00
  • Oma Lääkärisi Matinkylä, tel. 09 855 4100, Mon–Fri 7:00–18:00
  • The Medical Helpline will help you in the evening and at weekends when health centres are closed. Tel. 116 117.
  • Contact information of health centres in Espoo: espoo.fi/healthcentres
  • Video appointments with an on-call nurse are available. Go to the appointment booking system: espoo.terveytesi.fi

Mental health services are there to help you if the coronavirus is making you feel worried or anxious:

  • Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services, tel. 09 816 31300, Mon–Fri 8:00–16:00
  • Social and Crises Emergency Services is there to help outside these hours, tel. 09 816 42439

Support for everyday life

  • Nestori – Guidance and Service Counselling for Senior Citizens offers advice and solutions to everyday situations, such as getting groceries if an elderly person’s own support network is unable to help. Tel. 09 816 33 333, Mon–Fri 8:00–16:00. Please help us make sure that elderly people in Espoo are aware of Nestori’s services. You could for example leave the phone number on your building’s noticeboard.
  • Answers to frequently asked questions about the effects of the coronavirus on the elderly (in Finnish and Swedish)
  • The best way to contact Welfare Services for Families with Children is to use the Get help form at www.espoo.fi/gethelp or call tel. 09 816 23600, Mon–Fri 8:30–15:00. 
  • Social services and food help, tel. 09 816 45000, Mon–Fri 8:00–12:00
  • Disability Services Helpline, tel. 09 816 45285, Mon–Fri at 9–11 and 12–14

Changes to social and health services

We are providing the services that are absolutely necessary – this is why we must reduce non-urgent services. We will contact every client whose appointment needs to be rescheduled. To protect the elderly and other risk groups we are limiting visits to nursing homes, for example. More information: Social and health services during the coronavirus pandemic

Day care centres remain open and pre-primary education continues

Day care centres will remain open and pre-primary education will continue. This will ensure that guardians working in sectors critical to the functioning of society can go to work.

If you can arrange childcare at home, please do so. Remember to inform the day care centre director.

Open early childhood education (open day care centres, clubs and residents’ parks) is suspended.

People returning from abroad may not come to schools or day care centres for 14 days even if they have no symptoms.

Comprehensive schools will return to contact teaching on 14 May 2020. Upper secondary school students will continue to study from home until the end of the semester.

Contact teaching will continue in schools on 14 May 2020. After this date, municipalities will not be able to provide distance education for pupils in basic education.

We will follow the instructions provided by the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (THL) and the Ministry of Education and Culture to ensure that the return to contact teaching goes as smoothly as possible. We will pay particular attention to hygiene and cleaning, and safe distances will be observed at school premises.

The City offers lunch packages to upper secondary school students who are currently studying from home. More information and signing up through Wilma.

Pupils placed under home quarantine

The city’s Infectious Disease Unit will contact all guardians whose children are ordered into quarantine. In a quarantine situation, pre-primary education and early childhood education will not be provided for the children who are in quarantine.

Sports, exercise and culture

Swimming pools and all indoor sport facilities operated by the City of Espoo are closed. 

Videos and links encouraging to exercise have been compiled on page espoo.fi/omatoimiliikunta. All exercise courses and groups are on hold. 

All locations of Espoo City Library are open (limited services). More information about libraries: www.helmet.fi 

Museums are closed until the 31st of May.

Esbo Arbis and Espoo Adult Education Centre have cancelled all courses that are held as contact learning, until further notice. The cancelled sessions will be held at a later date if possible.

Espoo’s cultural venues will reopen in May and June. Read more

Nature House Villa Elfvik is closed. All nature tours organised by the Environment Department have been cancelled until 31 May 2020.

Youth workers are arranging activities and reaching young people in digital environments. For example a digital youth centre was opened in Discord. All Youth Centres will reopen in August. 

For now The Ohjaamotalo gives guidance and counselling over the phone and in Discord. Service points (Starttipiste) will reopen 1st of June. 

Contact us preferably by phone or chat

The Leppävaara, Espoonlahti and Matinkylä Service Points are closed. All other City of Espoo Service Points will continue to serve customers as usual despite the coronavirus. However, we recommend that all customers postpone their non-urgent errands or contact the Service Points by phone or chat. The general customer service number and the chat window are available at www.espoo.fi/asiointi.

How to run errands from home?

Services for entrepreneurs and companies

Entrepreneur, the business advisors in EnterpriseEspoo are there to help you. Book a meeting with a business advisor and we will be in touch. 

Applications for the operating support for sole entrepreneurs is now open. Read more about the application process. 

Information kit on services for entrepreneurs and companies during the coronavirus pandemic.

Live events turn into virtual ones

The events and meetings organised by the City of Espoo are cancelled or, if possible, held virtually instead. Official meetings will be held online.

All public events of the City Planning Department have been cancelled until further notice. We will later announce new event dates to replace the cancelled ones.

Good hand hygiene prevents respiratory infections from spreading

The best way to prevent respiratory infections is to take good care of hand and coughing hygiene. Further information about hand hygiene

Up-to-date general information about the coronavirus:

  • Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare: www.thl.fi/koronavirus
  • The national coronavirus hotline provides generic information about the coronavirus, tel. 0295 535 535, Mon–Fri 8:00–21:00 and Sat 9:00–15:00. Text message service for the deaf and hard of hearing, tel. 050 902 0163. General information on the coronavirus is also available from the Government’s chat service. The telephone and chat services do not give any health advice or guidance in the case of symptoms. In these cases, you should call your health centre or the Medical Helpline.

Smartbot to give multilingual coronavirus advice

The City of Espoo is testing a smartbot, or a learning artificial intelligence application, that answers questions in more than a hundred languages on the Espoo.fi website. Its language skills are based on machine translation from English. While it will undoubtedly make some grammatical errors, the goal is to ensure that the key content of its messages is still understandable. News article