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

Norway to offer 16-and-17-year-olds Covid-19 vaccine 

The Norwegian government announced Wednesday evening that it would begin offering 16-and-17-year-olds in the country Covid-19 vaccinations once everyone over 18 had received their second dose. 

This is expected to happen around September 12th, and children will be offered the choice of whether they want to be vaccinated or not. 

The decision to offer those in this age group coronavirus vaccines was made following a recommendation from the Norwegian Institute of Public Health (NIPH). 

In most cases, those in this age group will be given doses of Pfizer, and Norway’s health minister, Bent Høie, said that the government would now decide whether to begin vaccinating children aged between 12 and 15. 

COMPARED: How Covid vaccination rules for children differ around Europe

“Now we have some time left which we will also use to have the latest available knowledge from the NIPH before we make a decision about the 12-15-year-olds. I think this way of doing it contributes to people having confidence in the advice we give,” Høie told newspaper VG.

Norway’s oil fund rakes in 990 billion kroner in the first half of 2021

Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, the biggest of its kind in the world, said on Wednesday that it had earned more than 990 billion kroner, or 100 billion dollars, in the first half of 2021 due to a booming stock market – and an accidental purchase which ended up growing in value. 

The fund was launched in the 1990s to protect the country against volatile crude oil prices and fund Norway’s welfare state. Today, every fifth kroner of government funding is drawn from the fund. 

The fund posted a 9.4 percent return or the equivalent of 990 billion kroner in the first six months of this year. 

The energy, finance, health and technology sectors drove the gains. 

If you want to learn more about how the oil fund has transformed Norway, check out our article here.

Bergen to begin offering drop-in vaccines to all residents next week 

Today Bergen will begin offering drop-in coronavirus vaccines to employees from schools and kindergartens and from next week will start offering walk-in shots to all residents. 

Next week it is expected that the city on the west coast of Norway will receive more than 57,000 vaccine doses, meaning that it can accelerate its vaccination plan. 

Drop-in appointments for all residents will open up on Thursday, August 26th. 

612 new Covid-19 infections 

On Wednesday, 612 new cases of coronavirus were recorded in Norway, 75 more than the seven-day average. 

In Oslo, 144 new Covid-19 infections have been registered. This is a rise of 35 compared to the seven day average for the Norwegian capital. 

Total number of Covid-19 cases in Norway. Source: NIPH