– The strategy does not hit well enough – VG

– I think that the vaccine strategy that is now national is not working well enough. It is distributed according to age-specific population figures where all municipalities receive at the same time, but with targeted vaccination according to the places with the greatest contagion, the effect will be greater, explains Raymond Johansen to VG.

– We want to use this logic in Oslo, because there is a much higher infection pressure in Stovner and Søndre Nordstrand than in Holmenkollen. I believe that all of Oslo will indicate that it is important to protect the inhabitants where they are most likely to be infected.

The 40,000 doses of Pfizer that Norway receives per week are distributed evenly among the 356 municipalities in the country according to the number of elderly inhabitants they have.

But Johansen believes that a proportion of the vaccines should also have been distributed according to where the infection pressure is highest.

– One in three cases of infection occurs in Oslo.

With such a model, cities like Oslo, Bergen, Trondheim and Drammen will receive more vaccines sooner.

– But there are also many small and medium-sized municipalities that have had a lot of infection: Stjørdalen, Hamarøy, Hitra, Ibestad. If you look at the entire pandemic, it is Oslo, Fredrikstad, Nord- and Sør-Fron that have been the reddest. I think most people think vaccinating here will be more effective than vaccinating those with the least infection, he says.

Johansen says that a population-based uniform distribution can seem fair in many contexts.

– But if there is something that the corona pandemic has shown us, it is that it is not geographically distributed evenly. One in three cases of infection occurs in Oslo, and we have had the strictest and most intrusive measures at all times, you see.

– I do not necessarily think that a person in a municipality with few or no infected thinks that it is particularly unfair for a person in an area with a lot of infection to arrive a little higher in the queue.

In that, at least he has with him the municipal doctor in Bodø, who tells VG that it would be fair and reasonable to wait for the municipalities with the highest infection pressure to receive the vaccines.

First, everyone is vaccinated in nursing homes and those over 85 years old. After this, Oslo wants to start with districts with high infection pressure, for the next groups on the national priority list.

– The responsibility of the government

Starting next week, Oslo will have 15 vaccination centers in different parts of the city, which will be able to vaccinate all day with staff in shifts.

Johansen says that Oslo can basically set 63,000 doses a week and is ready to put in many more than they receive in the future. Since the first routine delivery of vaccines, Oslo received 1,455 doses.

In total, Norway receives approximately 40,0000 doses of pfizer per week.

– So you don’t think Oslo should get all these?

– No, I just want to say that Oslo and other municipalities with a lot of infection should be put as soon as possible. I think it is very important that we allow an action to be distributed according to the population and an action according to the amount of infection there is, says Johansen.

By Sunday, Norway had set 2,200 doses, while the number for Denmark, which receives as many doses as we do, was 40,000. More than 11,000 doses were set in Norway on Thursday.

– If it is the case that distributing doses to all the different municipalities at the same time helps to reduce the distribution rate in a very general way, and means that a disproportionate number of doses are left in the warehouse, then at least it is a job of important communication to explain. It’s the government’s responsibility, says Johansen.

Read the response to what the Minister of Health responds at the bottom of the case.

I waited even in space for Christmas

In an interview with TV2 on Wednesday, the city council leader took a hard line against the government’s vaccination strategy, saying that Oslo could vaccinate everyone in nursing homes within a few days.

– This does not work. At worst, people could die, he said.

At the same time, Oslo has received enough vaccines from the first shipment that arrived in Norway to vaccinate everyone in nursing homes. This week, 32 nursing homes are being vaccinated; the last seven will be vaccinated next week because they have ongoing outbreaks.

– Are you dissatisfied with the number of doses you have received so far in the Oslo nursing homes?

– It wasn’t primarily about nursing homes, it was about us getting as many doses as possible as soon as possible. And the discussion was that there were still many doses in stock and not in distribution. So I say that we have the capacity to do much more, says Johansen about it.

Oslo also decided to start vaccinating 450 people in five nursing homes this Christmas; there were fewer than Fredrikstad, who established 545 doses.

– Why didn’t you ask for more?

– Just before Christmas, we were asked if we could get vaccinations on Christmas Eve instead of January. We would like that. But, as we understand it, it was mostly a test and a symbolic scenario of the first vaccine. No one knew that if we had said we wanted to go to all of our nursing homes, we would have. It was a topic that hadn’t been discussed at all.

– Shouldn’t you be prepared for it to come?

– We presented our vaccination plan on December 18 and were prepared to start vaccination, but we did not know when we would receive the first doses until a couple of days before they actually arrived. We are now in the process of completing vaccination in nursing homes and nursing homes. When we learned that the last doses were ready on December 29 or 30, we changed our plans and increased the vaccination rate.

Johansen notes that Oslo was unaware that FHI had booked around 3,000 doses of the shipment in the Christmas space to Oslo. NIPH has taken self-criticism for not being able to communicate this.

– There was no realistic expectation that vaccine doses would be administered to all nursing homes from day one. But what we are missing now are vaccines.

Stop: – No one knows how quickly the next outbreak will come.

Health Minister Bent Høie responds in an email that it is not the case that the vaccine doses are standing and running out.

– All people to be vaccinated should receive two doses. I think Johansen hopes that Oslo residents will also get dose two at the right time. So we are prepared from the beginning, in case it gets wrinkled with a delivery, he writes.

– Regarding the strategy, the government has adopted the strategy recommended by the NIPH, that is, to distribute the vaccine equally throughout the country. In this first phase with little access to vaccines, priority is given to residents of nursing homes, the elderly and certain groups of health personnel regardless of place of residence.

He writes that we’ve had infections across the country and that outbreaks can get out of control quickly.

– Many small municipalities have also had major outbreaks. No one knows where the next outbreak will come from. It also takes a week from when the second dose is established until it has the full effect, and there should be three weeks between the first and second doses. A lot can happen in a month and breakouts need to be treated quickly. Recent times have shown us this, and that even small municipalities can be seriously affected by outbreaks in a short time.