– The fastest we have put in the whole pandemic – VG
Denmark is one of the countries in the world that has managed to detect the most omicron cases. Department director of Danish FHI, Troels Lillebæk, does not think the development is so different in Norway.
The eyes of the world are on Denmark, which is at the forefront of analyzing how the omicron variant spreads in society.
Denmark performs about 400,000 tests daily, says department director at the Statens Serum Institut (SSI), Troels Lillebæk. They make up about as many PCR tests as rapid tests.
The positive sample is first analyzed with a method that can detect which variant is possibly in the sample – called screening. Then get tried whole genome sequenced – which confirms which variant you are infected with.
This is where Denmark is far ahead of other countries.
While Norway in week 48 analysts Norway up to 30 percent with both methods in total, and in week 49 it rose to 46 percent. Only ten percent were genome-sequenced.
The Danes are close to 100 percent. In practice, this means that the Danish have a much more accurate picture of the proportion of omicron cases in the country.
Will be dominant soon
Earlier this week, the Danish Institute of Public Health SSI said that omikron may become the dominant variant in Denmark this week.
– How far away are you in that scenario?
– We expect that the omicron variant will be dominant within a week. A few days ago, it was ten percent. It is not more than 14 days since it amounted to 0.1 percent, says Lillebæk.
He explained that the Danish health authorities see rapid growth of the omicron variant and that it is now only a question before it is the dominant variant in Denmark.
– I know the model calculations in Norway and we have done some similar calculations in Denmark, which also show a very high positive rate every day. Whether omikron is as «dangerous» as delta or less «dangerous» than delta, it is in any case and problem with a high number of daily positive cases. Some will be hospitalized and some will be seriously ill, he says.
Spreads quickly
To say something about the dispersibility of a variant, one can e.g. look at the doubling time – which says something about how long it takes before the number of detected cases has doubled in number.
– Until recently, double time was every other day. This is the fastest we have put in the entire pandemic, also faster than the delta, says Lillebæ.
But in recent days, there may be signs that this growth has begun to slow down. Lillebæk believes there may be several reasons for this:
- This can, for example, be due to the pressure on the test system, which means that they lack the latest data.
- It can be a pressure on the system, which leads to only the sick being tested right now.
- And it may be that it is actually starting to slow down.
– But I would be a little surprised if that is the case. We are now vaccinating many people in Denmark, and it will of course start to have an effect, but it will be time before you have the effect of the vaccination. And it primarily affects the risk of serious diseases, and perhaps the risk of spreading the infection when you get the third dose, says Lillebæk.
Equal development in several countries
– Is there any reason to believe that the development in Norway is not the same?
– It is of course difficult for me to assess the development in Norway, but based on what I read and see, the situation is the same in Norway as in Denmark, says Lillebæk.
– I can at least fall when we see many omicron cases reported in Denmark, so I think it is related to the many, many people we test every day. That is 400,000 in a population of 5.8 million. There are many tests every single day. We find omicron cases because we are looking among all the positives. You have many countries in Europe where you do not test much and then you do not find the cases, he says.
He believes that the trend will also be evident in other European countries within a few weeks.
– It is not the case that Denmark is an omikron center, we do not have special links to southern Africa. I think that what we see is the same as what is already happening in other European countries, including Norway, says Lillebæk.
37 inlaid with omicron
Most omicron-infected people in Denmark are in the younger age groups who participate most in society. But Lillebæk expects that the infection will also spread to the older groups.
– About nine out of ten omicron cases are wild-type and not travel-related. With wild infection, we must also expect the infection to spread to several age groups, he says.
However, it is currently difficult to answer whether omicron causes milder disease than the delta variant, as has been reported from South Africa.
“It is only in a few days that we will really start to see how it affects the hospital system,” he says.
On average, it takes weeks from the time you become infected until you may need hospitalization. Then, on average, it will take another one to weeks before you will need intensive or respiratory treatment.
– Do you have any omikron admissions that so far?
– Right now 37 people are hospitalized, that’s the last number I have. But there is a bit of a delay in reporting. Yesterday we had no new posts with omikron, but again, that’s delay in reporting. Unfortunately, we have to wait until we see more posts with omikron. As more posts come in, we will also find out that the disease is serious. Even if one tries to avoid it, it will also affect vulnerable groups in society, he says.
– How good control have you achieved on the omicron variant?
– Right now is worried about the situation. For several days, we have set a doubling of the number of cases every single day. And in the course of a week, we will see 10,000 daily positive cases, some of which are omicron. What we see is that omikron will soon take over for the delta variant. Then we are also concerned about the spread of infection to nursing staff, hospitals and employees in the health care system. Of course, many will test positive and it goes beyond capacity when many are at home in isolation, says Lillebæk.