 a surveillance system for outbreaks in long terms care facilities ltcfs was piloted in norway from january 2020 to december 2021 the system used national registries that included data on ltcf residents staff covid 19 laboratory results causes of death and vaccination clusters 3 residents or staff with positive sars cov 2 test 14 days were detected in 427 43% of 993 ltcfs the authors concluded that automated national surveillance for sars cov 2 clusters in norways ltcfs is possible and has the potential for near real time outbreak detection 