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When Espen Nakstad spoke during Tuesday’s press conference on the status of the crown, he opened by saying that in Norway we are at a crossroads.
For Dagbladet, Nakstad, who is deputy director of the Norwegian Health Directorate, explains what he meant by the metaphor of the crossroads:
– We are now in a situation where we continue to have many large outbreaks of infection in Norway and we are at a high level. Or we managed to get back to where we were this summer, with very low contagion rates and less intrusive measures in the individual municipality.
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The infection increases
Since early August, there has been an increase in infection in Norway, Line Vold, department director of the National Institute of Public Health (NIPH), said on Tuesday.
Most of the increase in infection is due to the recent outbreaks in Bergen, Sarpsborg and Fredrikstad.
At the junction we are at now, it is “quite decisive” which of the roads turns, according to Espen Nakstad. The situation will be very demanding if the need for infection monitoring and testing remains at the current level.
– We are concerned that we are facing a busy fall for municipalities with infection testing and monitoring, a lot of resource intensive analysis work for hospitals and in general a very difficult way of life for most people, because you have to constantly deal with new outbreaks of infection and constantly new restrictions, the health chief tells Dagbladet.
– If we can get to such a low level with simple means that we get rid of these things to a greater extent, it will be a great advantage. And it will also strengthen stamina, just that people don’t get as tired of the crown as they would otherwise be.
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The “normal” life as motivation
Nakstad fears “wearing down the crown”: that the Norwegians, weary from the pandemic, are beginning to be careless with infection control measures.
– Obviously, it is a drain on all of us, that we are tired of this virus now. But if we start to relax too much, it will backfire by giving us an even more difficult situation, he warns.
– The motivation should be to see an autumn in a meeting where we can live relatively normally in Norway, fortunately. And if we all make a little effort and stick to it, then it is entirely possible.
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– Oslo has become a red city
What decides the path chosen by Norway this fall? These measures will give us more control over the eruption of the corona, according to Nakstad:
– The first and most important thing is to be able to detect cases of infection and track them correctly. And quarantine people when they are at risk of infection. This work is done in the municipalities in a very good way in most places.
However, events in several large cities give reason to be vigilant:
– We now have a situation in Bergen where there are a number of cases of infection that cannot be traced, at least directly, to the student community. This means that there is a lot of infection in the community that is different from other municipalities, says Nakstad.
– And then we see in Oslo that we have quite a few small local outbreaks that generally increase infection rates quite a bit. So now Oslo has also become a “red” city.
