Oslo | At least 17 people are suspected at this stage of having contracted the Omicron variant after a party last week in Oslo, after which more than half of the roughly 100 participants, who were all vaccinated, tested positive for Covid , the municipality said on Friday.
This is a tentative figure that may increase as sequencing work progresses.
“So far, 60 people have tested positive with a PCR test and four others with a rapid test,” Oslo city services said in an email to AFP.
“Seventeen are probably (cases of the Omicron variant) but not yet confirmed. So far, a case of Omicron has been confirmed by sequencing. ”
Between 100 and 120 people, one of whom had recently traveled to southern Africa, gathered at a restaurant in Oslo last Friday for a Christmas dinner hosted by their employer, the solar energy producer Scatec.
“All had been vaccinated, none showed symptoms and they had all carried out a self-test” before the meal, told AFP an official of the municipal health authorities, Tine Ravlo.
“Everything had been done in order and no rule was violated,” she stressed.
None of the guests who tested positive have, at this stage, developed a serious form of the disease, according to Ravlo. Most have mild symptoms in the form of headaches, inflammation of the throat, cough, she said.
The suspicions linked to the Omicron variant appeared after screening certain tests, which have not yet all been analyzed. This means that the number of confirmed cases of the new variant is likely to increase.
Additional results are expected on Friday.
On Thursday, after the outbreak of the suspected Omicron variant outbreak, the Norwegian government announced a series of health restrictions in Oslo and its region, which went into effect at midnight (11 p.m. GMT).