The Norwegian Institute of Public Health (NIPH) has said that a recent trend of decreasing weekly Covid-19 hospitalisations has been reversed and is now on the rise.

“The big winter (Covid) wave is now starting, as expected, to result in more hospital admissions,” Preben Aavitsland, chief physician in the infection control division at the NIPH, told newspaper VG on Tuesday.

In mid-December, the number of weekly hospital admissions with Covid as the main cause peaked at 254, before dropping off rapidly as Omicron, which the NIPH has said is 73 percent less likely to result in hospitalisation, became dominant in Norway.

However, the number of hospitalisations rose last week for the first time since the peak in weekly admissions at the end of last year. Last week there were 135 hospital admissions, compared to 116 the week before.

Aavitsland, chief physician in the infection control department, said that he expects to see Covid admissions increase even more going forward.

“It is a moderate increase (last week’s numbers), but we expect more,” Aavitsland told VG.

Line Vold, director of the infection control department at the NIPH, explained to public broadcaster NRK that despite Omicron being milder than the Delta variant, the increase in hospitalisations was expected due to Omicron driving higher infection rates than the Delta variant.

“We have always pointed out that with high enough infection rates, we will see more admissions,” Line Vold told the public broadcaster.

Over the last seven days, an average of 16,816 Covid infections have been registered per day. The same average a week prior was 10,359, indicating a rising infection trend.

Vold also said that those admitted with Omicron were spending less time in hospital than with other variants.

“The number of days you spend in hospital with Omicron is shorter than with the Delta variant,” she said.

In a recently updated risk assessment of the Omicron variant, the NIPH said that it was expecting anywhere between 100 and 400 daily hospitalisations every day at the peak of the current infection wave. The NIPH has predicted that the current wave will likely peak at the turn of the month or in early February.

READ MORE: When will the current wave of Covid-19 infections in Norway peak?