[ad_1]
INFECTION CONTROL DIRECTOR: Geir Bukholm from FHI calls for increased compliance with infection control measures. Photo: Frode Hansen
The infection trend in Norway is increasing slightly, but several factors are causing FHI to worry that it will get worse.
– It does not drop, so we consider that the infection situation is unstable. As we do not see the decline that we could have expected or expected, with the measures that have been introduced, says director of infection control, Geir Bukholm, of FHI to VG.
He also believes that there may be more cases of contagion that have not yet been recorded, which will soon appear in the statistics:
– We see approximately the same level of infection that we have seen in the last three weeks. But the image is characterized by the fact that we do not know whether people have tested themselves normally over the Christmas weekend. Therefore, we do not know if the actual infection situation is worse than that reflected in today’s infection figures.
On Wednesday, 732 new cases of coronavirus were registered in Norway. This is 254 cases more than the average of the previous seven days, which is 478.
732 is the highest number of infection cases recorded in one day since the start of the pandemic. The previous record was 717 as of Nov. 12, VG’s summary shows.
Increase risk
On Tuesday, FHI announced that priority groups with health personnel will advance the vaccine line and that they can begin vaccinating in parallel with risk groups from the second week. Previously, it was the case that all risk groups had to be vaccinated before health workers, but the NIPH has said that this could be adjusted if the infection situation changes.
The reason they are changing this now is a significant danger in the coming weeks from local outbreaks and concerns about infections and import mutations.
Measures are constantly taken to prevent the importation of infections and with control at border crossings. We request that compliance with the measures introduced be increased. And we are concerned about the effect of developing new, more infectious virus variants, says Bukholm.
In recent days, five cases of the British variant of the mutated virus, which is supposed to spread faster, have been discovered in Norway. But Bukholm does not believe that this mutation is the cause of the current infection situation.
– But there are always changes in these viruses. We also have mutations that have been detected in Norway, where increased infectivity has been suggested, including the variant of the virus that recently caused a major outbreak in Mo i Rana and a similar variant that was detected in Trondheim this fall.
Waiting for the effect of the vaccine for the summer
Oslo has the highest number of infections in the country and is the epicenter of the virus. But the infection trend in the capital is flat today. Therefore, it is not the increase in infection in Oslo that raises the national figures.
– There are some places in the rest of the country, but it is still limited to outbreaks, so it is not a constant increase, says Bukholm.
He fears that Christmas is one of the reasons the infection has increased.
– There have probably been more social activities and more frequent contact. And several who have traveled both nationally and between Norway and other countries.
– Does this mean that stricter measures may be necessary?
– We evaluate this as we get the updated data that we see later.
The fact that we have finally received a vaccine for Norway does not mean that the situation can improve immediately.
– The effect of the vaccination may not take effect immediately. One must have vaccinated a relatively large proportion of the risk groups before we can see any effect.
– It is important to stick to the infection control measures that have been introduced now, at least in the first half of the year. Then we will eventually see what effect we get from the vaccine, a little depending on how much vaccine we enter the country before summer.
– So is summer what you can expect?
– At best, it can be expected this summer, at least as it looks now.
If the vaccine stops being contagious it has a lot to say about whether we can ease the measures and live normally, and there are promising signs that it really does. Read more about it here.
Read all about the vaccine that has arrived, and the vaccines that may arrive, in Norway in the VG vaccine special, and see how many doses of vaccine your municipality receives in the first January package here.
