Norway to Target Most Infected Areas With More Vaccines

(Bloomberg) -- Norway will change its vaccination strategy to target the areas with highest rates of Covid-19 infection to fight the spread of the pandemic.

The government will authorize a “modest skewed distribution of vaccines to a number of districts in Oslo and some other municipalities that have had persistently high levels of infection,” in line with earlier recommendations from the Norwegian Institute of Public Health, Health and Care Services Minister Bent Hoie told a news conference on Tuesday. The affected regions will receive about 20% more doses, it said.

Norway, which withstood the pandemic better than most in 2020, this year had to impose the strictest measures since the outbreak started, including tighter entry restrictions, in an attempt to suppress a more contagious coronavirus variant. So far, it has distributed vaccines among the municipalities based on the proportion of inhabitants in the oldest age group.

“When the most vulnerable in the whole country are mainly protected, a geographical skewed distribution of vaccines to the areas that have had persistently high infection, will probably lead to fewer hospital admissions and risk of death,” the government said in a website statement, citing a new assessment from the public health institute.

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