Finland's cap on gatherings will remain at 500 throughout September, after officials backtracked on an earlier announcement that it would be cut to 50.
The Ministry of Social Affairs and Health on Monday said that an announcement from Finland’s Regional State Administrative Agencies that crowd gathering sizes would soon be restricted to 50 was incorrect, with the agencies misled by a typo in guidance issued by the ministry.
In a tweet posted on Monday afternoon the ministry said the country's coronavirus-related limitations on crowd sizes remained unchanged at a maximum of 500 people.
"There was an unfortunate typographical error in a letter of guidance from the ministry to the region's administrative agencies. The guideline for crowd size restrictions has not changed, 500 people is still the limit, not 50. A zero was missing," the ministry tweeted, apologising for the error and saying it was in the process of correcting the matter.
Event organisers are currently restricted to crowds of 500 unless they can make special arrangements approved by the regional state administrative agency.
Similar restrictions on crowds were introduced this springbut were relaxed in July as infection rates in Finland improved over the summer.
This article was revised to reflect the ministry's correction that Finland's crowd size restrictions would remain at 500.