Raymond Johansen: – – Minister of Health strangely little offensive

Councilor Raymond Johansen has long shouted warnings that an infection is creeping into the capital. He believes that the government’s requirement to prove a negative covid-19 test before arriving in Norway is not being met and he will have mandatory testing at Gardermoen.

– A mandatory test will raise the threshold for travel, while also increasing the chances of detecting an infection, Johansen tells Dagbladet.

– It is about closing the infection holes, and I think it is strange that we have a Minister of Health who is so non-offensive in terms of stopping the infection as soon as it arrives in the country.

Respond to disclosure

An Aftenposten article states that the government’s leading infection control experts warned against exempting foreign workers from quarantine and that it would carry “a special degree of risk.” However, the government opened up to this and the contagion of imports skyrocketed.

Text messages given to the newspaper to show how Norsk Industri lobbied for the government to open up to the exemption. The leader of the Oslo city council also reacts to this.

– Serious and worrying, says Johansen to TV2.

Reject the emergency call: – Slap in the face

– As free zones

Johansen believes that the corona pandemic has shown how vulnerable we are to infection from other countries and points the ski tourists who returned home after their vacation in the Alps at the beginning of the pandemic to the Norwegians who returned from their holidays abroad this summer already the infection that came to Norway with travelers. and working immigrants this fall.

– The national health authorities have asked for as many tests as possible to be carried out, and I am a little surprised that airports and border crossings are almost considered free zones. Border tests are quite common in many other countries. In Oslo, we managed to carry out massive tests of entire schools, it is clear that the authorities can manage to test everyone who comes from red countries, says Johansen.

Drink Fight in Løvebakken: – Completely on the ground

– Not suitable

However, Health Minister Bent Høie does not heed Johansen’s repeated calls for tests at the border.

– We have not been advised that we should introduce mandatory tests at the border by the Norwegian Health Directorate. This doesn’t mean that this can’t change, but it’s not something we want to introduce right now, Høie tells Dagbladet.

– Raymond Johansen is in the fortunate situation of not having an airport in his own municipality, and my point is that he can say this knowing for sure that it is not his people who will be forced to test and track the inhabitants of Oslo . , to test and track at the airport.

According to Høie, it is the Ullensaker municipality staff who in this case should carry out this work, as Norway’s main airport is located in this municipality, not in Oslo.

– Just look at the problems

Høie also believes that it would be wrong to move testing capacity from places where health authorities know it has an effect, to places where there have been significant doubts about whether it has an effect.

– If it had been the case that a test at the airport had revealed everyone who was infected, and it had not been at the expense of other infection work, then it is logical, says Høie.

The health minister also emphasizes that a test at the border will only give a snapshot, and he fears that it could lead to negligence in quarantine if the test is negative.

Johansen disagrees with that.

– I experience that the Minister of Health only looks at the problems and not the solutions. All those arriving from red countries must take the test. It should be mandatory, and I think people would be positive about it. This is not at the expense of quarantine rules, but it does increase the chances of contracting an infection, he says.

He believes that travelers often need to be screened once and twice.

– No infinite capacity

However, the Minister of Health is aware that there is no “infinite capacity” for testing, tracking and isolation.

Johansen knows this very well, because he has had great challenges with this even in his own municipality. The main explanation for the infection in Oslo is not an imported infection, but an infection in Oslo, says Høie.

– Denmark is a warning for Norway

-I do not want to speculate on why Johansen still wants to carry out tests at airports. Norway, along with Finland, has the strictest rules in Europe when it comes to stopping imported infections.

However, Johansen believes that Oslo has the ability to take on some of the people testing work at Gardermoen.

– In Oslo, we have the best testing capacity in the country and the opportunity to test 35,000 residents every week. We have over 300 working to track infections in Oslo. It’s not a problem for us to take responsibility for testing and tracking more people arriving from red countries, he says.

New rules on quarantined hotels

– It comes from abroad

Johansen also says that he has never claimed that the main explanation for the infection in Oslo is the import infection.

– The point is that the infection originates in a place and that place is abroad. The infection has reached Oslo from other countries and then has spread throughout our city. When other countries have more infections than Norway, it makes sense to better assess those arriving from these countries.

Høie does not rule out that testing at airports at a later date may be relevant, but believes it is irrelevant in the current situation.

– With new test methods and new knowledge, we can evaluate it differently. We are completely open to that. But we should not believe that what we have been through now is just an imported infection, because then the challenge is lost, says the Minister of Health.

Høie also emphasizes that there are already offers for testing at airports and large border crossings. However, the tests are not mandatory.

The latest report from the National Institute of Public Health, published on Wednesday, establishes that FHI lacks information both on the country of infection and on the infection situation for 60 percent of the cases of infection in weeks 48 and 49.

– The data we have should be interpreted in light of this. When information is available, the data indicate that approximately 6 percent were infected abroad, corresponding to the last 4 weeks (mainly foreign born), and that the most commonly assumed infection situation is their own home writes FHI.