COVID-19 pandemic in Norway
The COVID-19 pandemic in Norway has resulted in 1,507,269 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 5,732 deaths.
| COVID-19 pandemic in Norway | |
|---|---|
| Disease | COVID-19 |
| Virus strain | SARS-CoV-2 |
| Location | Norway |
| First outbreak | Austria and Italy |
| Index case | Tromsø |
| Arrival date | 26 February 2020 (4 years, 1 month, 3 weeks and 4 days ago) |
| Confirmed cases | 1,507,269 |
| Hospitalized cases | 314 |
| Critical cases | 45 |
| Ventilator cases | 28 |
| Recovered | 1,476,471 |
Deaths | 5,732 |
| Fatality rate | 0.2% |
| Government website | |
| www | |
On 26 February 2020, the virus was confirmed to have spread to Norway. The number of cases increased rapidly during the month of March, prompting a number of legal measures aiming to achieve physical distancing to be introduced on 12 March. The first death attributed to COVID-19 was documented on the same day. Most confirmed cases that were traced to outside Norway were Norwegian tourists returning from Austria and Italy.
In March 2020, a senior Norwegian Institute of Public Health consultant said one of the major reasons why the mortality rate was significantly lower than in other European countries (such as Italy, Spain, the UK) was the high number of tests performed in Norway. A commission was established in the early days of the pandemic to track and analyze every aspect of the nation's response to the pandemic (Koronakommisjonen); as of late June 2022 Norway's death per capita rate was the lowest in Scandinavia.