Assistant Director of Health Espen Nakstad answers questions about new corona variants and relaxation of the measures approx. at 15.30.
The WHO chief believes that there are now ideal conditions for a new corona variant worldwide. What consequences do you think it could have?
– What the WHO is probably thinking about is that infection rates are at a record high in large parts of the world and the virus has a greater opportunity to change when it infects many people. So it is clear that we will see subspecies of omicron, and maybe other varieties eventually. But the most important thing is that those variants do not cause more serious diseases, says Nakstad.
– Probably one thinks of the disease burden around the world opg that omicron gives milder disease for most people, Nakstad answers the question that the WHO has also stated that we are on our way out of the critical phase in the world.
– It is clear that when very many are infected at the same time, some also become seriously ill than if there were few infected, Nakstad emphasizes.
He also emphasizes that it is not known how the long-term effects are related to the omicron variant.
Denmark has had a great deal of contagion pressure recently, but few people need respiratory treatment.
– What we have seen in Denmark is that they have had quite a few hospitalized with covid-19 as a bi-diagnosis, which means that they are in the hospital for another reason, but are diagnosed with infection which is also included in the figures. In addition, more are being tested in Denmark, so the proportion of positives has been higher in Denmark.
– The best decision here is to look at the intensive care units, and there we see that we have had more hospitalized in Norway than in Denmark. But it also has another explanation. We have had a lot of Delta infection. We have simply had many who have been seriously ill with the Delta variant, says Nakstad, and explains that it is therefore somewhat difficult to compare the two countries.
What do we know about other countries that have had high sickness absence for weeks?
– We have no other figures than anecdotal stories from, for example, Sweden, where there have been problematic kindergartens and schools in several places. We also hear from our own health services that you constantly have to change shift lists because there is constantly sick leave. So it is challenging in many countries, but as long as you get people to cover the shifts that are important, and do not have to close down businesses, it seems that you have managed this in several places, say Nakstad and emphasize that in Sweden it is critical in some places now.
Are socially critical functions in, for example, Denmark and Sweden that are threatened now?
– We do not have a detailed overview from hospital to hospital in Sweden, for example, but we do register that there are kindergartens that report that 1/6 of employees come to work. It is clear that this affects, but from each week that passes, more people finish the disease and gain immunity. says Nakstad and points out that it seems that Norway has a flatter infection curve than our neighboring countries.
Is it appropriate to keep the restrictions in the future? Possibly, when do you think it’s time to ease the measures more?
– This is something you almost have to follow from day to day. It is clear that there is an increase in hospital admissions with omikron now compared to a week ago. Me it is not so strange because there has been significantly more infection also in the last week, than the week before. This with sickness absence and the number of patients who need treatment will vary greatly if the infection doubles, or triples, Nakstad explains.
– What matters is how many people we have contact with in you daily. And as long as we are at home when we are sick, testing ourselves, isolating ourselves when we are infected, wearing face masks and working from home where we can, most of us will have much less contact with others, says Nakstad, even though cultural events now allows multiple audiences.
– As soon as we get through this wave and things calm down a bit in terms of infection, then there will probably be opportunities to step down further on things, says Nakstad.
Nakstad explains that many will become ill this winter, but that many have also been vaccinated. He believes that there will therefore be much less coronavirus in circulation towards the end of winter / beginning of spring.
– Probably when we are more out in the spring and summer, there will be very little infection, hardly anything if we are lucky. If that happens, we will most likely go into a summer semester where we live very normally. Then it may be that in the autumn of 2022 and winter that there will be weeks and months where there is a lot of spread with coronavirus. If this is the case, then in principle it will be the case that the flu also spreads.
Nakstad says that he hopes that we get to the point where the virus mainly spreads in the winter, but not too much, and without major consequences.
– It goes slowly, but surely that way, but then we can get new surprises with new varieties and things that can happen, so there is no guarantee that we will get there in 2022, says Nakstad.
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