By NewsDesk @bactiman63
Norway’s National Institute of Public Health said in the second update of the risk assessment on variants of the coronavirus that they are likely to become a threat to our ability to control the epidemic in the coming months.
New variants of the coronavirus are constantly emerging. The varieties that have the greatest dispersal ability, ie the highest R-number, will eventually dominate. Since such variants spread better, more effective measures are required to keep them under control, explains department director Line Vold.
The outbreak in Nordre Follo is the first thing we know about the UK variant in Norway, says Vold.
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Nordre Follo municipality and the National Institute of Public Health have collaborated to solve the outbreak. The outbreak at the nursing home must have started in Christmas, but is now, so to speak, over. From the nursing home, there has been a spread to a kindergarten in the municipality and to a nursing home in Oslo. There is also a possible connection with outbreaks at a health station and school in the municipality. There are also some other infected people where the link is being investigated. The further outbreak investigation is in full swing.
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The experience is, as with all other outbreaks, that infection tracing and quarantine were crucial to limit the outbreak. The outbreaks were more or less over before it became clear that the virus was the UK variant.
There is still hope of eradicating the UK variant from this eruption. We may not be able to do that next time. If this or other more infectious variants gain a foothold in Norway, they will pose an important threat to the control we now have over the epidemic, says Vold.
The Norwegian Institute of Public Health considers that it is moderately likely that the UK variant causes more serious illness and a low probability that current vaccines protect less against the English variant.
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