It has now been just over two weeks since researchers in South Africa sounded the alarm about a new and apparently highly contagious virus variant.
After a few days, the variant was named omikron by the World Health Organization (WHO), and country after country closed its borders with South Africa for fear that the variant would gain a foothold with them as well.
Over a hundred cases
As of Thursday 10 December, 109 omicron cases have been detected in Norway. FHI believes that a further 425 cases are “probable” cases.
The challenge with omicron is that the health authorities do not know how the variant will develop, both in terms of serious illness and how well the vaccines work.
Therefore, the next two weeks will be absolutely crucial, according to assistant health director Espen Rostrup Nakstad.
– In a week or two, we will have more figures on who has been hospitalized, how they have fared and we can say more about how the vaccines protect against serious illness, he says to TV 2.
Will limit attend
In recent days, one infection record has replaced the other in Norway. This led to Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre (Labor Party) introducing a number of, strict measures during a press conference on Tuesday.
– What I think will happen now is that the measures we have will limit the spread of the delta variant. We will look at the figures in a week’s time. We will also hopefully have a reduction in admissions with the delta variant, also because more people get their third vaccine dose, says the assistant health director.
– Good situation
There is one thing in particular that Rostrup Nakstad hopes will happen with the omikron variant.
– If we were to be so lucky that omicron is a variant that does not give such serious cases of disease, it would be a good situation. If it also makes you immune to the delta variant – then it will be a kind of dream scenario, he says.
However, there is a big but here.
– The numbers’ speech is not quite like that, it looks like it is more contagious and that those who get sick get quite the same symptoms as with the delta variant.
– Want a lot to say
In the coming weeks, the Norwegian Directorate of Health and the National Institute of Public Health will closely monitor what research in the world shows, and the doubling rate of omikron.
– How fast does it really spread? It will have a lot to say. If there is little infection in Norway, and we have a few outbreaks we have control over, then we can handle this for a while without it becoming too much. But if it increases very quickly, and each outbreak leads to many cases of infection, then we can get a situation towards Christmas where we get a lot of infection with omikron as well, says Rostrup Nakstad.
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