This is Christmas in Oslo – maximum ten at Christmas parties – VG

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.

But how should this really be interpreted in practice?

Raymond Johansen made it clear at the press conference that up to 10 people can meet during I 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.

This applies to companies that are organized in the municipality of Oslo.

While national regulations allow the household plus ten guests twice at Christmas, Oslo now sets the limit at a maximum of ten in total.

Receive support from Høie and FHI

Both Health Minister Bent Høie and the National Institute of Public Health support the continuation of the strict measures in the capital.

– The government has made it clear that municipalities can implement stricter local measures than national recommendations. Based on the infection situation in Oslo, I understand that the municipality of Oslo has stricter rules for Christmas holidays than the rest of the country, Høie says in an email sent through the communications department.

He points out that contagion rates in the capital have decreased, but are still at a high level.

– The National Institute of Public Health and the Norwegian Directorate of Health also recommend continuing the strict measures for Oslo, writes Høie.

Frode Forland, director of the National Institute of Public Health (NIPH), believes the Oslo move makes sense and says it is in line with the local situation.

– Oslo still has the highest infection pressure in the country. So we think it makes sense to go to a stricter level, Forland tells VG.

The city council leader says he is happy that the government is clear that Oslo must do local assessments.

– We will continue the social closure of Oslo until January 7. Then we will do a new evaluation, says Johansen.

Max 20 in the church

– Most likely we will have to live with stricter measures in Oslo than in the rest of the country.

Some relief is introduced, even for the socially disadvantaged and children and young people. Oslo is also 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.

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.

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.

– We must be realistic; There are small businesses that probably don’t follow these quarantine rules in detail.

Johansen also mentioned the airline Wizz Air, which during the first ten days of January has up to 84 departures from Poland to Norway. Over the ten days, the airline can fill just over 15,000 seats, depending on the space of the company’s most common aircraft, the Airbus A320.

The council leader also noted that the infection is much higher in some minority groups than in the general population.

– The epicenter of Oslo has ended in our eastern districts, and especially in Groruddalen.

There are also many more people here who work in service professions where you cannot work from home from the kitchen table.

It gets a little childish

The leader of the conservative group in the Oslo City Council, Øystein Sundelin, was careful before the press conference to criticize the city council for taking a stricter line than the rest of the country, as at that time he did not know the background that would do.

– 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.

1. That the decline is flattening. That is, the numbers no longer drop as fast and the infection trend becomes flat.
2. 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.