Will test up to 230,000 per week – VG

To keep the schools open, the city council wants to initiate a comprehensive evaluation of the 90,000 students at the Oslo school.

Screening tests are tests of large groups of healthy people, who have no symptoms or are defined as close contacts.

The city council also wants unvaccinated healthcare professionals, teachers and construction workers to receive a simple coronation test from the state each week, which they take and record themselves.

In total, these groups number 170,000 people in Oslo, says health adviser Robert Steen. In the long term, it is also important to include kindergarten staff in the plan.

These are in addition to the fact that the municipality of Oslo wants to have the capacity to analyze nine percent (around 62,000) of the rest of the population per week.

If the city council makes a breakthrough, it means that more than 230,000 can be crowned per week. This corresponds to about a third of the population of Oslo.

Simpler nose test

– There is high infection pressure and schools come and go from homeschooling. We want to protect children and youth and keep schools as open as possible, says Robert Steen.

He believes that screening can be a constructive measure for living with the infection.

Through detection, the city council will ensure that a hidden infection leads to entire schools and kindergartens being quarantined.

Oslo wants to use the crown sample taken from the front of the nose. It doesn’t require the same proficiency as the deep nose test, says Steen.

Eventually, older students will be able to take the test themselves.

Needs a rule change

– We need the state to change the definition, so that the screening and reading of these tests are no longer defined as medical care, Steen says.

Today, screening involves the duty of keeping a record, which must be carried out by health personnel.

– Not appropriate, when this is to be implemented on a large scale. At some point, human resources will be exhausted. We need the state to free us from healthcare personnel, Steen says.

The municipality wants to protect health personnel, health nurses and teachers from detection work.

– Does the city of Oslo depend on the government to change regulations to introduce screening in schools?

– Yes, says the Oslo health council.

A digital solution for self-assessment of test results is a prerequisite for being able to analyze so many each week. Steen believes that this solution should be developed at the national level.

Must increase analytical capacity

Increased testing has previously put laboratory testing capacity under pressure.

Just before the government introduced the highest level of measures in all of Viken, Helse Sør-Øst announced that the analytical capacity at OUS had exploded. More than half of the county’s municipalities face challenges with the work of TISK (testing, isolation, infection detection, quarantine).

– Will the laboratories have enough analysis capacity to handle 230,000 Oslo samples per week?

– We just don’t know. I get slightly different signals from companies, labs, and private companies, says Robert Steen.

In addition to a change in regulations, Oslo needs sufficient analytical capacity in laboratories.

– We also ask the state to establish sufficient laboratory capacity for the analysis of the anterior nasal sample, so that large volumes of children and young people can be analyzed in schools, says Steen.

At the same time, the municipality requests that a digital solution be established to mark cohorts or groups, so that saliva samples can be used for screening classes.

– Have you communicated this to national health authorities and the government?

– We have gathered our thoughts and will summarize it in a letter to the Norwegian Health Directorate. It will probably ship tomorrow.

– Is there enough evidence in existence to test 230,000 people in Oslo?

– These are the usual tests that we have in the test stations. At the beginning of the pandemic, there was a shortage of reagents (a chemical used in testing), which are used in testing. Experiment that you can get it now.

– Is there a good enough warehouse for this today?

– It is equipment that we obtain from laboratories, says the Oslo health council.

Settle in Copenhagen

Oslo, among other things, has looked to Copenhagen, which from Monday will screen school students on a large scale.

At week 10, 113,119 people in Copenhagen were tested with a PCR test. In addition, 59,901 were tested with a rapid antigen test. Therefore, about 27 percent of Copenhagen’s population underwent tests within a week.

In week 10, 48,848 tests were reported to the Oslo Health Service, corresponding to approximately seven percent of the population.

– Have you had a dialogue with Copenhagen?

– Yes, that’s where part of the inspiration for this sketch comes from, says Steen.

The Oslo municipality will start projecting as soon as the state manages to facilitate, at best, right after Easter.

– I think it is possible, but before I have been called a naive optimist. If we look at the calendar, it is possible to do it. It’s a bit about the will and the ability to act quickly. There are still two more weeks to go. It is possible, if we can get the state to join us, says the health agency.

The most important thing for the Health Council is that the Oslo proposal is taken seriously.

– What is the alternative if it is not possible to evaluate the students of the school?

– Then we return to where we are today, with the TISK regime reinforced with quarantines on standby. So we must wait for schools to open and close depending on the infection situation. That’s where we are, and what we want to find an alternative, says Steen and continues:

– Here we have put an alternative on the table, and then it may well be that there are things we have not thought about. But then we have to think again and challenge ourselves in creativity. We owe it to students, teachers, and parents to do everything possible to keep schools open. Denmark has projected longer than we have, and they have made it possible.