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On Friday, the municipality of Oslo and the municipality of Bergen announced extremely strict measures against the spread of covid-19. In Oslo, city councilor Raymond Johansen described it as a “social shutdown”.
– Many of us have been concerned about what we have seen about the pressure of infections in Oslo. For Norway, it is essential that Oslo manages to keep the infection low. If they don’t, so will the rest of the country. It’s absolutely crucial, but it’s possibly too late, NTNU professor of social medicine Steinar Westin tells Dagbladet, continuing:
– When we closed Norway in March, people had realized that the coronavirus was dangerous and life-threatening. Everyone understood the seriousness. It has now been increasingly reported that young people are less likely to become seriously ill with COVID-19. Therefore, it is now much more difficult to maintain discipline between them.
Not too early
The measures were introduced after the government announced new national measures on Thursday. Bergen has managed to quell local outbreaks once before, while Oslo has battled a steady rise in infection since August.
– These measures did not arrive a day before. In the last week, infection rates have increased at a rapid rate. Now the situation is dire, says Westin and continues:
– We have seen the drawing and we should have set the emergency brake earlier. The signs from Europe have been unequivocal. Not least the signals from Sweden, where many of us thought they had achieved some degree of immunity after 6,000 deaths. But now things are also bad in Sweden. They seem to have a lot of untraceable infections in society and have stopped running effective infection detection.
Worst contagion
In week 44, around 3,000 cases of infection were recorded in Norway. This is almost double the number in Norway’s second worst week of infection. The most affected are the big cities of Oslo and Bergen, with more than 100 new cases of infection a day.
– In Oslo and Bergen, the infection situation is problematic. They have reached a tipping point where they will soon be unable to maintain traces of infection. There are many trained city chief doctors in the country who have done a great job, but we hear they are tired as they now experience higher infection rates week after week, says Westin, continuing:
– Large cities, such as Oslo and Bergen, have been driving forces of the epidemic in this country so far. But we still have a lot of import infection, and I think there should have been mandatory testing for people coming to Norway from red countries.
Importsmitte
At the end of September, Johansen refused to introduce various measures proposed by the Norwegian Health Directorate and Health Director Bjørn Guldvog.
During the press conference on Friday, Johansen said that the main reason for the increase in infection is non-compliance with the measures among young people and imported infections. Johansen particularly highlighted migrant workers from Poland.
– So far, there have only been recommendations. Obviously, many of those who arrive in Norway simply go through the test station. Then they can take the airport bus and go anywhere. So we don’t know if they comply with the quarantine rules either. There’s a hole in our system, we don’t have good enough control over how they enforce quarantine, says Westin, continuing:
– But now I hear that fines are imposed for obvious violations of quarantine provisions, and that is good. Because of this, there has been a fairly large gap in our infection control so far.
