While omicron infection is on the rise, involvement is still present in most cases of infection in Norway. The biggest fear now is that there will be two epidemics at once, says deputy director of Health Espen Rostrup Nakstad.
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In the past 24 hours, Norway has registered 5,741 new cases of coronavirus and the infection trend continues to rise. All in all, there has never been a week like this in the pandemic, Deputy Health Director Espen Rostrop Nakstad told VG.
The numbers still include a delta variant, but ommicron cases are on the rise, he says.
To make sure someone has an ommicron, samples must be analyzed. It is a time consuming process which means it takes time to detect ommicron cases. Health authorities are now excited to see how quickly the incidence of oomicron infection is increasing and whether the delta variable is leveling off, given all the measures that have been taken.
– With Delta, we also have the effect that many are vaccinated with the third dose. And I think that partly explains the change we’re seeing now in who’s hospitalized.
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What he fears most now, according to Nakstad, is the persistence of high infections in the delta and the significant increase in ommicrons.
– That’s what we’re most afraid of, if we don’t get significant cross-immunity (to have protection against one variant after infection with another, editor’s note).
When new, more contagious variants emerged earlier in the pandemic, they replaced the existing ones, he says. Nakstad therefore says that it will be interesting to follow developments in Denmark in the coming weeks. The reason is that we are two very similar countries, in about the same place in the epidemic.
According to the Assistant Director of Health, there is evidence from the UK that the doubling time for the virus is not as high as originally thought.
It will be interesting to see if the epidemic can spread. If one doesn’t have good delta immunity to omicron infection, we could actually have two epidemics for a while with two virus variants.
Will there be two different diseases?
– It will be the same disease, but that means we will still end up with a lot of people in Delta hospitals, more Omicrons and some in hospitals.
Nakstad further says the hope is that Omicron will give milder symptoms while still being immune to Delta. Then it would be an advantage that we have introduced the new virus variant in the country.
– But we have to go through a difficult phase before we get there.
Positive study: – Saves the lungs more
new ones Study from Hong Kong He points out that the ommicron settles further into the nose and throat, something vaccine expert Ann Spurkland thinks is good news. Naxtad is also positive, but says it will be a few more weeks before you see if the study is valid.
– This examination is called a laboratory examination of a laboratory. It was noted here that in the upper respiratory tract, i.e. nose, throat and larynx, omicron copies 70 times more easily than other viruses, while the virus copies itself in the lungs 10 times worse than Delta, he says.
– But it is too early to conclude, this is not a human study. This has to be confirmed by hospitals and elsewhere.
However, the fact that patients in South Africa with an omicron need less oxygen than patients with the delta variant is a good sign, says Nakstad.
There is something to back it up that maybe even more lungs are saved with this new alternative. But like I said, it’s too early to say.
Previously, the country had many delta infections and a large percentage of the population was reinfected with ommicrons. This may indicate that delta protects less against omicron infection, but the course of the disease appears to be milder overall.
But, Nakstad points out, it’s important to remember that if the ommicron doubling time is just one week, it won’t be long before hospitals remain congested.
– It shows that the number of sick people at the same time is important. Will be many of them, wild yet challenging in many health services in many countries.
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