NIPH chief physician Preben Aavitsland points to several factors that will affect infection rates in the coming weeks. One of them is the Christmas holidays.
On Monday, 3,022 new cases of infection were registered in Norway in the last 24 hours.
There are 1713 fewer cases than the average of the previous seven days. At the same time, lower infection rates are normally registered on weekends. Last Sunday, 600 more cases of infection were registered.
136 municipalities have an increasing infection trend on Monday.
Chief physician at the National Institute of Public Health, Preben Aavitsland, highlights a number of factors that will affect the number of infected in the future.
–Among other things the effect of the measures, both on the delta variant and omikron. There is more uncertainty surrounding the latter.
– It may be that the measures are not good enough against it, so that it continues to grow, says Aavitsland.
3394 cases of the omicron variant have been detected in Norway so far. 1334 of them were detected since Friday, reports FHI.
Not all positive samples are checked for omicrons, so the actual number in Norway is probably higher.
– We expect that the measures will have a good effect on the number of new infected, but it is a little too early to observe such an effect now.
Another thing that will affect the infection rates in the coming weeks is Christmas holidays. FHI believes the holiday will reduce the spread of infection, since many are home from work and universities.
Aavitsland believes that people will behave at Christmas.
– We think people will mainly follow the recommendations and rules.
He says it is difficult to compare how the spread of infection has been in other holidays, due to differences in other factors – such as variant, season and current measures.
Aavitsland also points out that it can be less testing due to vacation, lack of self-tests and long response time in the laboratories, as factors that affect the infection rates.
Lack of self-tests is a challenge many municipalities now have. In the capital there is one limited number and not enough for everyone, and the municipality must therefore prioritize how they are used.
At the same time, many experience that takes a long time from the time they suspect corona infection and order a PCR test, until they get a response to the test.
– Are you worried that people will test themselves less at Christmas, possibly stop testing themselves for fear of quarantine, so we get a worse overview of the infection situation?
– There are many uncertainties in counting the number of infected, including changes in who tests themselves and how many test themselves. We are therefore most concerned with the weekly admission figures, says the FHI superior.
Pressure on the health care system has been an important reason for this the new measures which was introduced a week ago.
On Monday, 373 corona-infected patients were hospitalized in Norway. This is an increase of 17 patients from the day before.
75 of the patients receive respiratory treatment, and 121 are in the intensive care unit.
– Do you think we will see an increase in admissions also in the coming weeks?
– The pressure on the health service is due to several factors: hospitalizations for corona, hospitalizations for other diseases, staff sickness absence due to corona or quarantine, poor access to temporary staff from abroad and problems in transferring patients to nursing homes, which are full.
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