A plane from Macedonia carrying 24 passengers who have the coronavirus landed in Finland on Saturday, Finnish authorities informed.

There were a total of 157 passengers on the Skopje to Turku plane, and the authorities believe it is now the main source of new infections in the Nordic country. The EU borders are closed for Macedonian citizens due to the high rates of infection and mortality in the country, but dual citizens, mainly gastarbeiters, are allowed through. In this case, the plane carried mainly Kosovan and Finnish passport holders.

Finland said that in response to this incident, and to a recent flight from Romania which also carried infected passengers, they will introduce two weeks of quarantine for arrivals from any country that has a high infection rate. Finland has had 7,600 positive cases and 333 deaths through the course of the epidemic, almost half the numbers in Macedonia on three times the population.