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On Wednesday evening, Aftenposten revealed the text messages between Bent Høie’s Secretary of State Anne Grethe Erlandsen and lobbyist Knut E. Sunde in Norwegian industry. According to the newspaper, Sunde has received much of the credit for rescuing Norwegian industrial companies during the pandemic.
The text messages give the impression that the Ministry of Health and Care Services was pressured to instruct its subordinate agencies to deal urgently with the schemes granting quarantine exemptions to foreign workers in Norway.
Anne Grethe Erlandsen is Secretary of State for Bent Høie in the Ministry of Health and Care Services. Photo: Ministry of Health and Sanitary Services
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“OKAY. We have a direction and a ministry that works at full speed. I need to know that they are working on something that you can be happy with.”Among other things, the secretary of state wrote to Sunde on June 22. A few hours later, the government granted foreign workers exemption from the ten-day quarantine.
Four months later, Erna Solberg and the government had to turn around and introduce stricter measures. By then, Norway had received a new wave of infection, and in the meantime 77 planes had landed from Poland and Lithuania with the infection confirmed on board.
Import infection is considered one of the main causes of the second wave of infection in Norway. According to the government’s own infection control experts, the quarantine exemption for foreign workers was a measure with a “particularly high degree of risk.”
– sensational
The revelations have quickly sparked reactions.
Oslo City Councilor Raymond Johansen calls the revelations alarming and worrying. Photo: Terje Bendiksby / NTB Photo: Terje Bendiksby / NTB
– It is surprising because the dialogue that arises contributes to casting doubt on what considerations are really compared in the Ministry of Health and Sanitary Services and what interests have the last word. I think this is serious and worrying Oslo City Councilor Raymond Johansen (Labor Party) tells TV2. He says the municipality met the reluctance of the government when they shouted warnings about the leap in contagion and wanted stronger measures against contagion from imports.
– I am very concerned because obviously the government does not prioritize infection control in this case. Here, Health Minister Bent Høie and his secretary of state have taken too high a risk of spreading the infection in this country to satisfy the wishes of Norwegian industry, says Labor Party health policy spokesman Ingvild Kjerkol al same channel.
High responses
To the Aftenposten revelations, the Health Minister responds that during the entire pandemic there have been different inbound quarantine seizures for business travelers.
– Which exceptions have been applicable have depended on the infection situation both in Norway and in Europe. The professional infection control assessments 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 grant authority to take more stringent measures than are strictly necessary, Høie tells Aftenposten.
