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The people of Oslo cannot celebrate Christmas in the same way as the rest of the country. Until January 7, a maximum of ten people can meet privately.
Therefore, it will not be the great Christmas parties in the capital. If you are a family of five, you can only invite five people.
The City Council will make a new assessment of the social closure on January 7.
– It is too early to make major concessions in Oslo, says City Councilor Raymond Johansen (Labor) at a press conference.
– The ban on more than ten people meeting at home will continue to apply here. We get support for this from national health authorities, says Johansen, noting that the virus thrives best in large cities.
When asked how the rules should be interpreted, Raymond Johansen clarified that up to 10 people can meet during in week and that one should stick to these ten. In practice, this means that you can have a company with up to 10 on Christmas Eve and then a new company with 10 others on New Years Eve.
But the 10 include those who live in the home.
Philosophical collections with 20 people
He says he is happy that the government is clear that Oslo must conduct local assessments.
– We will continue the social closure of Oslo until January 7. Then we will do a new evaluation, says Johansen.
– Most likely we will have to live with stricter measures in Oslo than in the rest of the country.
But Oslo is open for Christmas services and other philosophical gatherings with up to 20 people.
– We hope this can help reduce loneliness and isolation at Christmas, says Johansen.
While national regulations allow the household plus ten guests twice at Christmas, Oslo now sets the limit at a maximum of ten in total.
Some relief is introduced, even for the socially disadvantaged and children and young people. In addition, the town hall opens for services and other philosophical gatherings, but these gatherings will have a maximum limit of 20 people.
Oslo has tested 200,000
The Minister of Health, Robert Steen, says that Oslo this week about 200,000 tests and that they plan to vaccinate in early January.
– And we will try more, he says at a press conference and adds that the capital is preparing for mass vaccination.
– A draft of the vaccination plan will be on my table before Christmas. It looks like we’ll be using Pfizer, but we’re also making plans for alternatives, Steen says.
FAR ABOVE THE RED LEVEL: The government marks countries with too high an infection abroad as “red.” The limit to become a “red country” is 25 infected per 100,000 inhabitants in the last 14 days. By comparison, Oslo is now at 211, according to VG figures. Photo: Stian Lysberg Solum
Raymond Johansen justifies the continuation of the social closure with the fact that Oslo has one in three cases of infection in Norway.
– Now we take responsibility, and then I think the government must also take responsibility for saving the fundamental companies in Oslo, he says.
Johansen points out that the social closure has caused less mobility, but that this will increase at Christmas.
– People will come to Oslo from other parts of the country to celebrate Christmas. All of this mobility will increase the risk of infection, Johansen says, asking people to have a low threshold for testing.
– I think it should have been a mandatory test for people coming from red countries, says the town council leader who thinks there are good reasons to believe that the quarantine rules are not followed well enough.
During the first ten days of January, the airline Wizz Air has up to 84 departures from Poland to Norway. Over the ten days, Wizz Air can occupy just over 15,000 seats, depending on the space of the company’s most common aircraft, the Airbus A320.
It gets a little childish
Before the press conference, the leader of the Conservative Party group in Oslo City Hall, Øystein Sundelin, was careful to criticize the city council for taking a stricter line than the rest of the country, as he did not know the background at the time. in which they would.
– I like to have the approach that if infection control advice is the foundation, then I don’t want to problematize it. But it’s demanding enough for people to keep up with all the rules, so that should be the reason if you want to make it more confusing by having different rules in different parts of the country, he tells VG.
Frps Aina Stenersen, who heads the city council’s health and social committee, also fears that they could create confusion with other rules in Oslo than at the national level.
– Now the inhabitants have made a great effort to reduce the pressure of the infection in Oslo, so we expected that the city council would follow the advice of the government for the Christmas season. It becomes a bit childish to be constantly in opposition to the Minister of Health. It benefits very few Oslo residents, Stenersen believes.
– Level still too high
So what exactly is the infection situation?
- This is good: The municipality of Oslo has a downward trend, according to VG figures. The municipality believes that the second “wave” of infection may be in decline. While in mid-November more than 200 people were infected in one day, the average for the last week has been 100. In other words, it looks much better now than in mid-November.
- But do not forget: November was not a situation of illusions either. Think that this summer there could be around 10 infected in one day. And then we shuddered on the ground with an infection pressure as high as Oslo now has. The capital is considered an engine of contagion throughout the country.
Therefore, the municipality says:
– We are still at too high a level to be comfortable. Yes, the infection has decreased by 40 percent in three weeks, but we are, but we are still at an alarmingly high level. I experience the situation as unstable, says health advisor Steen.
If people continue as they have and are good at infection control, it can reduce infection even more, Steen notes. Deputy Health Director Espen Rostrup Nakstad also says that most people seem to take the advice.
– A lot of good is being done in Oslo to reduce infection rates and it seems to be starting to pay off. So there is a good chance that the infection will fall even further across the city, even if it takes some time, Nakstad tells VG.
Difference between east and west
But it is not certain that it will continue to decline. The municipality of Oslo sees other scenarios of what may happen in the future.
- That the decline is flattening. That is, the numbers no longer drop as fast and the infection trend becomes flat.
- That the numbers begin to rise again.
– If we let go a little, there is a risk that the descent will not continue and will start to rise. The infection situation is at such a high level that it doesn’t take long before it starts to rise again, he notes.
- These are at the peak of infection: Young people are still at the peak of contagion in the capital. As in Norway in general, in the capital most people are infected among young adults in their 20s. They are also at the peak of infection in December, according to figures from the Oslo municipality, followed by the 30-39 and 40-49 age groups.
- Big differences: There are large differences in infection between districts. While Stovner has 447 infected per 100,000 inhabitants in the last 14 days, Ullern has 107.
– So little is needed when we are at a certain level of infection, and I still think we are above this level, says Steen in the municipality of Oslo.
– We are heading on a vacation where, in our part of the world, we tend to bond and bond. This is something that actually goes against the infection control behavior we want, and is a risk area now in December, Steen says.
That is the situation of the infection, according to the municipality of Oslo.
