The Finnish doctor who declared irresponsible football fans was himself at the match in St. Petersburg

Pekka Lehtonen, a member of the Board of Governors of the Helsinki and Uusimaa Medical District HUS, justifies his trip by receiving two doses of the coronavirus vaccine.

On Thursday, Head of the Diagnostics Department of the Helsinki and Uusimaa Medical District HUS Lasse Lehtonen actively tweeted about the situation with the return of football fans from St. Petersburg to Finland.According to him, it was not possible to distribute the flow of tourists at different checkpoints and at different times, and the organizers of the trips did not contact the border guards to inform in advance about the time of crossing the border.In addition, Lehtonen said that he is aware of cases when fans returning from Russia did not remain in quarantine, and some even with a positive test went to a restaurant and traveled by public transport.

Director of the Statistics Center of Finland Marcus Solvala drew attention to the fact that Lehtonen himself was during Euro 2020 in St. Petersburg, and asked if the trip to Russia was a mistake of the authorities or the tourists themselves.To this Lehtonen replied that he was vaccinated with two doses of the vaccine and he had a “green certificate” giving him “the right to free movement.”In fact, the “green certificate” is a European system and has nothing to do with travel to Russia.It will give the right to travel within the EU after its introduction in July.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Finland still recommends refraining from travel to countries outside the EU or the Schengen area – except for the most essential.The same recommendation applies to Russia, and it applies to all residents of Finland, regardless of vaccination.The Finns were discouraged from traveling to St. Petersburg both in the THL Health Department and in the Kymsote medical district of the border region of Kymenlaakso.

Lehtonen also told Twitter users that he is a member of the Finland National Team Fan Society (SMJK), but did not use public transport to get to St. Petersburg.In addition, he claims that on his return from Russia he passed additional tests for coronavirus.