Illness, Medicine / Health | New corona variant on the rise, also in Norway

It is still the omicron BA variant. 5 and subgroups of this that have dominated after the summer in both Norway and Europe, but one of the new variants, which has an ever-increasing ability to circumvent immunity, is BF. Variant 7, which now makes up one in ten virus samples analyzed by the Norwegian Institute of Public Health (FHI), writes VG.

– We don’t know about BF. Variant 7 causes more severe disease, or otherwise differs significantly from previous variants, but the number of mutations suggests it can bypass immunity more effectively than before, assistant health director Espen Rostrup told the paper. Nakstad.

But what this will mean in practice is still too early to tell.

– We believe vaccines will still protect well against serious diseases, but we don’t have enough experience with this new variant to be able to tell how it will affect the pandemic, he says.

In Norway, corona infection is increasing quite slowly, while the autumn wave we have seen in several neighboring countries has subsided over the past week, writes VG.

(© NTB)