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On Wednesday, Aftenposten revealed the game behind the government’s decision to grant quarantine exemptions to foreign workers. Later, the imported infection turned out to be one of the reasons for the second wave of infection in Norway.
Facing Dagbladet, Labor leader Jonas Gahr Støre, Oslo city council leader Raymond Johansen, SV leader Audun Lysbakken and Rødt leader Bjørnar Moxnes reacted strongly.
– The government must answer for this. The question that arises is whether the companies have perished as a result of stricter measures this fall, after the import infection that hit Norway this summer, Støre tells Dagbladet.
Requires response
Johansen also calls on the government to join. Throughout the fall, he warned of weaknesses in quarantine regulations and a lack of evidence of people arriving in Norway from the red countries.
– Aftenposten’s revelations explain why they haven’t listened to us. It appears that the government allowed corporate lobbyists to help create the quarantine rules. I hope it’s wrong, and I hope that Høie can go out into the field and say that it’s wrong for lobbyists to set the rules and that the government didn’t take its own infection control experts into account. It is important that the Minister of Health enters the scene and denies that he has been pressured by lobbyists.
SV leader Audun Lysbakken will also have responses from Prime Minister Erna Solberg and Health Minister Bent Høie.
– There were good reasons to open the borders this summer, but the question is whether the government had good enough control. Now it is absolutely necessary to demand answers from Solberg and Høie. The urgency, the easy handling of objections from healthcare professionals, and the close contact with NHO that has now been revealed, raise big and serious questions about the government’s handling, Lysbakken tells Dagbladet.
– shaking
Red leader Bjørnar Moxnes tells Dagbladet that he thinks the revelations are shocking.
– The revelations are shocking. The government puts upper-class income before infection control, life and health. Contrary to the advice of health professionals, they opened the border for the importation of labor from several highly infected countries. In addition to imports of labor from Eastern Europe, we saw chartering planes with Vietnamese strawberry pickers and infection among underpaid Filipinos in Hurtigruten, Moxnes told Dagbladet.
IMPORTSMITTE: Aftenposten writes that more than 100 municipalities have received cases of infection from Poland. Photo: Hans Arne Vedlog / Dagbladet
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Revelations
Aftenposten documents how the Norwegian Health Directorate and the National Institute of Public Health during the process warned the government that imported infections posed a great risk, expressed their opposition to Norsk Industri’s infection control guide for foreign workers and warned that these rules were contrary to the covid-19 regulations. the regulations were modified.
Avisa also documents how Norwegian industry put pressure on the Ministry of Health and Care Services, and how the Ministry of Health and Care Services put even more pressure on the health authorities.
Aftenposten presents, among other things, SMS correspondence between industrial lobbyist Knut E. Sunde and Secretary of State Anne Grethe Erlandsen.
“Hold on tight. Tragic email from Helsedir (…) who tears his legs during all we have done. And what do you and I agree on when writing?” Sunde wrote to Erlandsen in one of the messages from text.
Since the regulatory change, more than 2,000 Poles, Lithuanians, British and other foreign workers have been diagnosed with COVID-19 after arriving in Norway, according to Aftenposten. In addition, they write that more than 100 municipalities have received cases of infection from Poland.
Høie’s answer
Health Minister Høie tells Aftenposten that the regulatory change was mainly in line with the recommendations of the health authorities.
– The exception came after an initiative by the Norwegian industry. They were concerned that this was important for many jobs along the entire coast and also across the country. The regulatory change was mainly in line with the recommendations we received from the Norwegian Health Directorate and the National Institute of Public Health.
Høie also states that the infection situation in Europe at that time was positive.
– The infection control evaluations of the Norwegian Health Directorate and the National Institute of Public Health have been used as a basis. The exception in question here occurred at a time when the development of infection in Europe was generally positive. The Infection Control Act does not give authority to take stricter measures than are strictly necessary.
Critical
Labor leader Støre believes the Aftenposten disclosures confirm that the government has had a wavering and ill-regarded relationship with import infections. He also believes that many of this fall’s infection control measures entering Norway should have been in place much earlier.
– The government learned in March that much of Norwegian working life relies on labor from other countries, but was still lagging behind with infection control measures. Many are paying the price for now, especially companies in other industries, Støre says, continuing:
– The government emphasizes that it follows the advice of health professionals in all its decisions. But there is cause for concern here because this advice has not been heeded.
Surprised
Johansen says he is surprised that the government has chosen to grant quarantine exemptions to foreign workers, despite the fact that they came to Norway from countries with high infection pressure.
– There is no doubt that the imported infection contributed to the second wave of infection in Norway. Now we have a social lockdown in Oslo and 35,000 are unemployed. Without necessarily having a direct connection, the import infection has also been part of the challenge here. I myself have made it very clear that we must do what we can to close the infection leaks. Airports, workplaces and borders cannot be free zones for infection control during a pandemic, says Johansen.
It will continue
SV leader Lysbakken says they will follow up on the Aftenposten disclosures with questions to the government and then consider further follow-up at the Storting.
– Here is revealed discrimination that must be highly provocative to the many small business owners and the unemployed who are waiting for more help from the government. When powerful business leaders complain about SMS, the advice of healthcare professionals is quickly sidelined and NHO lobbyists write the rules themselves.
Lysbakken has long expressed concern about the power of government during the crown pandemic and still believes that the Storting should be more involved in matters of important measures.
Contact
Norsk Industri is the largest national association of the Norwegian Confederation of Business and Industries (NHO). Red leader Moxnes observes the contact between NHO and the government, which arises from the SMS correspondence presented by Aftenposten.
– NHO has a direct line to the Conservative government that others can only dream of. In a matter of minutes, the country’s top political leaders are on the move when employers request it. And when the government needs a response from NHO, they have to sit and wait until the director has finished walking in Marka, Moxnes says.
