Covid passport extensively required by the City of Espoo at public events and some customer premises

Everyone aged 16 or over must show their Covid passport and also their identity card. A Covid passport will be required at city events and some of our customer premises until the end of 2021.

You will be able to visit the library without a Covid passport, but you will need one to attend events arranged at a library. Events in open library premises will, as a rule, be cancelled or postponed to a safer time.

Basic education in the arts and other recreational activities will be organised with safe distances and in compliance with general safety guidelines in order to prevent the risk of infection caused by close contact. Providers of recreational activities must organise any public events, such as Christmas performances, in compliance with the same restrictions that apply to other public events.

If the instructions are further specified, we will provide information on this to operators as soon as possible. In general, we require that clubs operating on city premises follow the instructions of the Regional State Administrative Agency (AVI) on their own initiative.

Read also: press release by Cultural Services

The extensive introduction of the Covid passport is based on the decision taken by the Regional State Administrative Agency for Southern Finland (AVI) on 2 December 2021, which prohibits indoor public events and general meetings with more than 20 participants in Uusimaa.

However, organisers can avoid these restrictions by requiring participants to show their Covid passport. Therefore, we will require Covid passports rather than introduce new restrictions in all city services where this is possible. 

In addition, AVI requires that operators in charge of customer and public premises arrange the use of the premises in such a way as to prevent the risk of infection caused by close contact between customers, participants and groups. In practice, this means that the operator can, for example, restrict the number of customers, stagger participation, and/or rearrange the premises or customer seating.

For example, at Espoo’s Service Points and Service Centres we will prevent close contact by rearranging customer premises and, if necessary, staggering the flow of customers.

The Covid passport cannot be required by premises that are essential for normal life or legal rights. For this reason, Espoo’s libraries and youth services, for example, will not require a Covid passport.

However, when public events are held in these facilities, participants aged 16 or over are required to show a Covid passport. We will not restrict the participation of children aged under 16 in public events, even if the organiser requires a Covid passport of other participants.

You can download your Covid passport from the kanta.fi service(external link, opens in a new window). Do as follows:

• Log in to My Kanta Pages on the kanta.fi website using your preferred identification method, for example your online banking codes or mobile ID.
• Select “Koronatodistus” from the menu on the left-hand side. You will also find a link to the certificate section on the front page of My Kanta Pages.
• Open your certificate by clicking on the PDF link. If a certificate is available, it will open in a new tab.
• Save the PDF file on your phone or other device. That way you will have the certificate when you need it. You can also print the certificate on paper.

You can read more about the Covid passport at espoo.fi/coronavirus.