By Bond Robertson 
Everyone infected with the coronavirus in Norway must remain in isolation for at least six days. On Friday, the NTB wrote that the World Health Organization estimates that people with corona are staying at home for two days due to the disease. In addition, there are four additional days in legal seclusion.
Many of those isolated were doing well for all or part of the time and were going to work normally. When they have to be isolated, the absence increases for important services that depend on presence, such as schools and the municipal health service, FHI chief medical officer Preben Aavitsland told NTB.
On Monday, Assistant Director of Health Espen Rostrop Nakstad answered the following questions about what is the biggest challenge for coronavirus in Norway at the moment:
– For now, the biggest challenge is no longer the burden on intensive care units – nor so much on hospitals, although they have leveled off with slightly more admissions than before. Perhaps it’s because of absence due to illness in the community – that many of them are away from work – that is the biggest problem now, he tells Dagbladet.
The last wave of the pandemic
– a challenge
The absence, says Nakstad, is probably mainly due to the fact that people are already sick.
— but also the fact that we have a commitment to isolate for six days, which may mean that someone is a day or two away from work than they could have been. It’s another challenge today, he says.
Nakstad says the Norwegian Directorate of Health follows sick leave statistics and infection rates closely.
Most people with corona are likely to be at home because they are sick. People of working age often have a number of respiratory symptoms, headaches and fevers – they don’t feel fit to go to work. But it is not certain that they have had such for a full six days, he says, and continues:
– It may be possible for some of them to go to work after five or four days without injuring others.
However, the situation, the omicron variable considered, has not been set enough anywhere for the Norwegian Directorate of Health to say anything with absolute certainty.
It is possible that there will be an effect of the disease and the rules of isolation.
Getting close to the border
More contagion in the community means more people get sick at the same time, Nakstad stresses.
On Friday night, Vy had to cancel 25 train trips on Line 1 Spikkestad Lillstrom due to the absence of disease associated with corona. On Saturday and Sunday, Vys train traffic was running as usual after the company took measures to cover absences.
– Perhaps what we notice in Vy and elsewhere, is that it started to approach the maximum number of infected people in Norway at the same time, without actually affecting the work to be done.
Nakstad believes we will be able to stay under that limit in this wave.
– But we know it was a problem in other countries. We’ve heard from the news in Sweden that there are kindergartens, for example, where only one in six employees come to work, because the others are sick at home. So this is difficult if the infection wave is very high.
Increase sick leave
54,731 sick leave were recorded in the fourth week. That’s an increase of 4,600 sick leave reports from last week, according to new numbers from incorrect.
In 2021 and 2020, there were 28,419 sick leave and 32,715 sick leave, respectively, in the same week.
Of the 54,731 reports of sick leave, 27,750 are related to Corona. This is an increase from the third week, when there were 22,454 sick leave related to corona.
This means that half of those who were on sick leave last week had corona-related diagnoses.
The prevalence of omicrons means that the number of new people with physician-approved absences continues to increase. Director of Labor and Social Welfare, Hans Christian Holt, said in a press release incorrect.