What we know so far about Europe’s biggest Omicron outbreak

Up to 120 people who attended a Christmas party in Oslo have tested positive for Covid-19 in what is believed to be the largest outbreak of the Omicron variant outside of South Africa.

Around half of the infected guests have screened positive for the new strain since the work bash in the Norwegian capital on 26 November, “the same day Omicron was named and designated a ‘variant of concern’”, said The Telegraph.

The party-going employees of solar power company Scatec reportedly spent most of the evening “isolated in their own room” at the Louise Restaurant and Bar, on the Oslo waterfront. But the restaurant owner told the newspaper that “they began to mingle with other guests” from about 11.30pm until the bar closed at 3am.

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Two employees who tested positive the following day had recently returned from South Africa, where Omicron was first detected.

Test of vaccines

The infected guests have symptoms including “fever, cough, headache, muscle pain, fatigue, but for now, none of them has become severely ill”, Tine Ravlo, chief physician for the Oslo borough of Frogner, told The Telegraph.

According to latest Oxford University tracking, Norway’s Covid vaccination rates are similar to those of the UK. Just under 71% of people in the Scandinavian country had been fully vaccinated as of 5 December, compared with around 68% in the UK.

In South Africa, where Omicron appears to be spreading quickly, just under a quarter of the population had been fully vaccinated.

If most or all of the infected guests at the Oslo party “were confirmed to have been vaccinated”, said The Local, “it would raise questions about the effectiveness of the jabs against the new variant”.

Jorunn Thaulow, a researcher at the University of Oslo, told the news site that the high proportion of positive tests was “an indication that this is a contagious variant, no doubt about it”.

That warning was echoed by Norway's state epidemiologist Frode Forland. “We don’t know if it will be more transmissible, but we suspect that is the case after the first investigations we have from South Africa, and also the spread we've from this outbreak in Oslo,” Forland, director of infectious diseases at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health (NIPH), told The Telegraph.

One of his one of his agency's three scenarios for Omicron is that while very transmissible, the variant will also prove to be very mild. “That is the best scenario we can have, that it's getting milder, most people will get it, and they will get a natural immunity,” he said.

“It might be that it has now replicated and mutated so many times that this is the optimal position from the virus' point of view, to spread widely and not kill the hosts. That's what we've seen with other diseases beforehand. And of course, then it gets into more like an endemic phase.”

Return of restrictions

Sky News reported last week that efforts were “under way to trace contacts” of the Oslo party guests who tested positive, and that “visitors to two restaurants in the city being urged to get tested”.

New restrictions have also been introduced for Oslo, home to about 700,000 people, and surrounding districts. The measures include “working from home when possible, a 100-person attendance limit at private indoor events in public places or rented venues, and restaurants and bars having to register customers”, euronews reported.

And “anyone entering Norway must be tested within 24 hours, either at the border, at a public test station or by self-test”, the broadcaster added. “If a rapid test comes back positive, a traveller must take a PCR test within 24 hours.”

Announcing the new restrictions, which came into effect on Friday, Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere said it was “likely that the Omicron variant will spread in Norway”.

He continued: “That is why the government believes in stricter measures. We still have to keep our distance to get control of the spread of infection, but that does not mean that we cannot have good contact with each other.”