Today in Norway: A roundup of the latest news on Tuesday 

Several cities start mass testing in schools

Oslo and several other towns and cities struggling with rising infections will begin mass testing in schools to try and ease some of the demand on their infection tracking services. 

Infection control chief at Oslo Municipality, Frode Hagen, said that mass testing in schools in Oslo would help ease the pressure on infection tracking services. 

“This will give us much better control over the infection in this age group. At the same time, we will be able to break infection chains,” Hagen told VG.

READ ALSO: Norway enters fourth Covid-19 wave, warns health chief

Oslo University Hospital preparing for children with Covid to be admitted 

The pediatric ward at Oslo University Hospital has said it is preparing for children to be admitted with Covid-19 following weeks of rising infections amongst children. 

“We are preparing for more children to be admitted. At the same time, generally, we have experienced that the few children that are admitted rarely become seriously ill. This applies to children with other underlying diseases. We hope this will continue, but we have seen from other countries, especially the USA, that some children can also become seriously ill,” clinic manager Terje Rootwelt told newspaper VG.

Rootwelt also wanted to reassure people that hospitals were prepared to deal with more patients following a rise in Covid infections. 

“We are prepared for increased infection and will be able to handle it,” the clinic manager said. 

Five municipalities yet to register a single Covid infection

Almost 160,000 Norwegians have been diagnosed with Covid-19 since the pandemic began, but there are still five municipalities yet to record a single infection newspaper Nationen have reported.

Utsira in Rogaland, Vevelstad in Nordland, and Røyrvik, Leka and Rindal in Trøndelag are the parts of Norway yet to register a single Covid infection. 

One of the reasons for this is the exceptionally low populations in these areas. Four of the municipalities, with the exception of Rindal, are among the top ten municipalities in Norway with the lowest populations. 

Utsira municipality has only 198 inhabitants, for example. 

1349 new Covid cases in Norway

On Monday, 1,349 new cases of Covid-19 infection were registered across Norway. This is an increase of 175 on the seven-day average of 1,174. 

In Oslo, 372 coronavirus infections have been recorded. This is an increase of 46 on the average for the previous week. 

Total number of Covid-19 cases in Norway. Source: Norwegian Institute of Public Health.