News studio – Nakstad about the Christmas table infection
More than 60 vaccinated people may be infected with the omikron variant after a Christmas dinner in Oslo.
Preliminary test results show between 15-20 of the participants are omicron-infected.
Assistant Director of Health in the Norwegian Directorate of Health, Espen Rostrup Nakstad, answers questions about the new, potentially much more contagious variants.
– It is special and also very interesting and instructive that so many fully vaccinated were infected in the same place. It tells us a lot about what one has feared when it comes to infectivity with these virus mutations, actually seems to agree quite well. At least in the context that was mapped here in Oslo. So we do not yet know if these people will become more or less ill than they otherwise would have been, Nakstad says to Dagbladet TV.
This also tells something about the vaccine effect, Nakstad believes.
– The fact that so many were infected, even though they were vaccinated, probably indicates that the vaccine effect has been reduced, at least when it comes to protection against being infected and being able to infect others.
He believes that the new measures will help to slow down the spread of omikron.
– Well, the goal is to buy time to get answers to some questions related to variants. And at the same time prevent the spread of known outbreaks from continuing.
Omikron was first discovered by some researchers in South Africa last week. There are still many indications that the variant has existed for several weeks, and therefore he may have come to Norway before that time.
Although it is assumed that the variant is more contagious than the now dominant delta variant, it appears in advance that the variant does not cause more serious disease. A spokesman for the World Health Organization (WHO) says that they have not received reports of registered deaths that can be linked to the omicron variant, reports Reuters.
Naktad explains this as follows:
– The few reports that come from South Africa, among students in younger age groups, indicate that they have not become more ill and what to expect with delta. And the spread of infection in South Africa has been much stronger than the increase in posts, so far. But it’s a little early to conclude. It is usually a few weeks from infection increases until one begins to see it on cost posts. We will probably not get any conclusion until a couple of weeks have passed.