– Can appear anywhere in Norway – E24
– Unfortunately, we do not have control, says assistant health director Espen Rostrup Nakstad, and says the omikron variant can appear anywhere in Norway.
More and more people are being infected by the omicron variant of the coronavirus since the first outbreak was located on 26 November.
Monday morning, assistant health director Espen Rostrup Nakstad says that they have no control over the new mutant.
– Unfortunately, we do not have control because more and more confirmed cases appear, but also a number of incorrect cases. And since this variant is probably more contagious than delta, we must probably expect that it can appear almost everywhere in Norway now, says Nakstad in a interview with VGTV.
Can become dominant
The health authorities suspect “quite strongly” that the variant is “more contagious” than the previously known mutations of the virus, says Nakstad. A large mapping work is now underway to obtain knowledge about the virus.
– All the testing that is taking place now is important to provide a special answer to the question: How omicrons react in the face of the vaccines that the population has taken and how it affects different age groups.
Until now, it is mostly young people who have been infected, and therefore there is a lack of experience from how the variant affects the elderly and vulnerable, he says.
Threaten Christmas
Omikron is poised to become dominant in some countries already, says the assistant health director.
This has an impact on what is expected in Norway.
– Until Christmas, we can probably get quite a few cases of omicron if we do not manage to limit the outbreaks well that we have today, Nakstad says.
So far, Christmas parties have been the source of a lot of infection.
As of December 6, there are fire fires or confirmed omicron outbreaks in the country: A Christmas table in Oslo, a Christmas table in Sør-Odal, and a conference and one student at a school in Oslo.
At the first-mentioned Christmas table, 120 people have been confirmed infected with corona. All were double-vaccinated.
– The uncertainty and risk we face, considering a massive spread of the coronavirus in Norway now until Christmas, it is quite significant. It means that we must at least have a number of measures ready and then we will recommend a number of things to the government now, based on hour-to-hour monitoring of the infection situation in Norway, Nakstad tells VG.
Several measures
Minister of Health Ingvild Kjerkol (Labor Party) says that she is concerned about the development, and that she does not rule out more and stricter measures during the week.
The government already introduced new measures at three levels on 2 December.
Over the weekend, the Norwegian Directorate of Health and NIPH have worked to map the state of health and what advice they should give the authorities.
– We have put on absolutely all measures that have been used so far in the pandemic. The most important thing is to prevent people from meeting others, says Nakstad.
Following the infection control advice becomes even more important in meeting the omicron variant, he says.
– But if this is not sufficient, we will have to implement other measures that reduce the frequency of contact between people.
The spokesman for the Norwegian Directorate of Health will not say which specific measures may be relevant until the Ministry of Health and Care Services has reviewed the recommendations from them.
– We have worked quite quickly, because we want to prevent the spread of the omicron virus in the initial phase, until we get more knowledge about this virus, says Nakstad.