I think the pandemic in Norway will be over in September

Whether Norway loses two out of four vaccines does not matter much.

For the first time, FHI has published calculations of how the pandemic will develop in the future, where they take into account that the vaccination is actually underway, and that many more doses are on the way.

It has been a challenging job: At the time of writing, it is very uncertain which vaccines Norway will actually have to rely on in the coming months.

The AstraZeneca vaccine has been put on hold, while the Johnson & Johnson (Janssen) vaccine has still not started deliveries, and there has been bad news about how many vaccines will actually be delivered.

Also read: Drastic decline in expected vaccine deliveries from Johnson & Johnson

FHI has therefore counted on three different possibilities:

• Four vaccines will be available: Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca and Janssen (PMAJ)
• AstraZeneca vaccine missing (PMJ)
• Both AstraZeneca and Janssen are absent (PM)

In all cases, they have taken as their starting point what is FHI’s “sober” estimates on how many doses will come to Norway in the time ahead.

Also read: 1.1 million children will not get vaccinated in Norway – what happens then?

Two additional vaccines make almost no difference

The startling thing about these calculations is that the difference between the worst and best alternative means that FHI calculates that the pandemic for all practical purposes will be completed at the same time.

This has partly to do with that the mRNA vaccines is believed to be more efficient, and partly because AstraZeneca in particular has dramatically downgraded its deliveries.

The graphs below show the development in the number of infected, the number of hospitalized and respiratory places in the next year:

The number of vaccines we have to use affects the assumed peak of infection, but to a very small extent when the pandemic is assumed to be over:

According to the calculations of FHI, the number of infected people will move down to a completely insignificant level at some point between August and mid-September, depending on whether we have two, three or four vaccines available.

Also read: AstraZeneca downgrades the effect of the vaccine

The most important thing here, however, is that FHI is now almost completely convinced that the intensive capacity will not be overloaded.

– None of the scenarios exceeds a need for over 500 intensive care places, writes FHI.

Some important prerequisites

The calculations of FHI indicate that the peak of infection can potentially come in May, or in the worst case in June. FHI nevertheless emphasizes that models do not take into account that significantly less infection is expected when the heat comes.

Within the models, a number of assumptions have also been made which mainly tend towards cautious ones, which means that the figures can probably be even better:

• One does not assume that better weather matters
• It is not assumed that the protection of the vaccines is better against serious disease, than symptomatic disease. AstraZeneca has, among other things, claimed a 100 percent effect against serious illness, but around 70 percent against symptoms.
• It is assumed that vaccinated people only reduce the contagion effect by 40 percent. Here the uncertainty is great, however the assumption is that this figure is around 70 percent.
• FHI uses its sober scenario for the number of vaccines that come, not its optimistic scenario

The exception to all the precautions is the following: Vaccine intake is assumed to be 90 per cent in all age groups over 16 years.

At the time of writing, no vaccines have been officially approved for people under the age of 18, and NIPH has previously considered it realistic that only 70 percent of the adult population will actually take the vaccine.

Also read: One in ten Norwegians has received a coronary vaccine

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