A corporate Christmas party in Norway turned into an Omicron "super spreader event" with up to 60 people possibly affected.
The new coronaviruses variant has made the outbreak the biggest outside of South Africa.
Preben Aavitsland, a senior physician at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health, said that the party has been a spreader event.
At least half of the 120 people at the party may have been exposed to the Omicron variant. This is the largest Omicron outbreak outside of South Africa.
The party was held by a company called Scatec, which has operations in South Africa.
According to multiple reports, one person who attended the party recently returned from South Africa.
All attendees had been tested for vaccine before the event and all of them were negative.
Fifty people who attended the party had positive tests for coronaviruses, while another ten had positive tests for flow tests, according to the Norwegian state broadcaster.
Health authorities have confirmed that 13 of the cases were Omicron, and more are expected to be confirmed, according to the report.
It's too early to say if the clinical picture of the disease is different in Omicron than in Delta infections, according to Aavitsland.
None of the patients have severe symptoms. This is not a surprise given the young age of the participants.
The Omicron variant has been found in 23 countries, according to the World Health Organization.
It's too early to know how the variant will affect hospitalization rates and deaths, but most of the reported variant cases have been mild so far.
