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Norway sees most new coronavirus cases in five weeks

The Local Norway
The Local Norway - [email protected]
Norway sees most new coronavirus cases in five weeks
The Oslo suburb of Alna is one of the places which has seen an outbreak. Photo. Vidariv/Wikimedia Commons

Thirty-two new coronavirus cases were registered in Norway on Thursday, the highest number in five weeks.

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The number of people being treated in hospital with the virus has also risen slightly to 19, from a low of 16 seen earlier this month -- although this is still well below the peak of 325 in hospital seen at the start of April.
 
Frode Forland, director of science at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health, on Thursday said that he expected that Norway would in the coming months see a succession of small waves of infection,  which would then be brought under control by contract tracing and isolation. 
 
"What we hope for in the future is that we can stop smaller outbreaks and not get a major new infection peak," he told NTB newswire. 
 

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If that is the case, he hopes not to have to use "the big sledgehammer" of a return to lockdown restrictions, he said: "We can use the little hammer." 
 
He said that Norway's experience so far had shown that it was possible to control coronavirus, although he stressed there are no plans to eradicate it completely, as has been the policy in New Zealand or Iceland.  
 
"What we have done has shown that it is possible to beat down the infection," he said. 
 
"We do not want to eradicate this virus. And especially now when we open up for more travel, there is a greater risk that we will get the infection back. We are not Iceland or New Zealand." 
 

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