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WARNING: NIPH Director Camilla Stoltenberg warns that Covid-19 mortality can increase dramatically if the virus begins to spread to vulnerable groups again. Photograph: Stian Lysberg Solum / NTB
The risk of dying from Covid-19 infection is estimated in the latest risk assessment from the National Institute of Public Health at 0.31 percent.
This means that three people are supposed to die for every 1000 people infected with the coronavirus in Norway.
– It is three times greater than the corresponding uncertain estimate we have for the flu, says the director of the National Institute of Public Health, Camilla Stoltenberg.
She notes that the number of deaths in Norway during the 2017-2018 flu season was estimated at 1,400 people.
– If we had had it three times, we would have despaired, Stoltenberg tells NTB.
Very deadly for those over 80
Mortality from coronavirus is calculated as the percentage of deaths of all those infected. This is called lethality or infectious lethality in technical parlance.
To date, almost 90 per cent of deaths in Norway have occurred in the age group over 70. For people over the age of 80, the disease appears to be very dangerous with a lethality greater than 10 percent, writes FHI in Risk Assessment.
So far, 275 people have died of coronary heart disease in Norway.
EuroMOMO statistics also show that the total number of deaths in the population, regardless of cause of death, last week was within the norm in both Norway and Europe as a whole.
This spring, the corona pandemic caused significant excess mortality in several European countries.
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Will not leave
Health Minister Bent Høie (H) emphasizes that the virus itself has not changed. It is as dangerous today as it was when the corona pandemic began this spring.
Høie also doesn’t believe that progress in treating the disease is still great enough for infection control measures to be published.
– A situation now in which one would have released this virus freely in society would have dramatic consequences, both in the number of deaths and in the form of an overload of the health service, Høie tells NTB.
Health Director Bjørn Guldvog highlights estimates made by Imperial College London. According to him, they show that we can have prevented 12,000 deaths in Norway with the infection control measures we have implemented.
– It says something about the magnitude and how dramatic this pandemic could have been, says Guldvog.
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Can change quickly
According to Stoltenberg, there is still no question that mortality is lower now than it was this spring.
This can be due to several factors. The best methods of treatment in hospitals may be part of the explanation. Another explanation may be that the virus has been more contagious in recent months in younger age groups.
But the situation can change quickly, Stoltenberg warns. Therefore, he believes that mortality should be examined for some time.
– There is great variation between groups, and when mortality is low now it is also because there are few infected in the most vulnerable groups. If the infection spreads there, it can change abruptly, he says.
– We are not certain how mortality will develop further.
