“Now it’s serious”. Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store abruptly sounded the alarm on Monday regarding the spread of the coronavirus in Norway. A new set of health measures has above all been unveiled, ranging from the ban on alcohol in bars and restaurants, the acceleration of vaccination or the generalization of teleworking.
It must be said that the projections are of particular concern to the executive. This Scandinavian country of 5.4 million inhabitants could register in three weeks between 90,000 and 300,000 new cases of Covid-19 per day and from 50 to 200 daily hospitalizations, warned the Norwegian Institute of Public Health (FHI) in the Monday morning.
More from “julebord”
To put these data into perspective: the high hypothesis of this range corresponds more or less to the number of people who have officially contracted the virus in Norway since the start of the pandemic, which reached 317,870 on Monday, including 1,136 who died from it. Above all, the continued dissemination of the Delta variant and the emergence of the Omicron variant, considered to be more contagious, could lead to “complete congestion of the health system”, underlined the Prime Minister. For the moment, the country has been experiencing records of contaminations and hospitalizations for several days. As of Monday, 958 cases of the Omicron variant had been detected, including 472 in Oslo.
Less than a week after strengthening health measures, the government has therefore tightened the screw again. The serving of alcohol in bars and restaurants will be banned, although it was until now possible to do so until midnight. This should spell the end of the traditionally watered parties organized by employers before Christmas. One of these “julebord” had turned into a focus of the Omicron variant at the end of November in Oslo. Like the other measures, this ban will come into force overnight from Tuesday to Wednesday and will last four weeks until further notice.
Teleworking will be compulsory when possible, the obligation to wear a mask extended and access to public swimming pools and sports halls restricted to certain categories of the population. It is also recommended to cancel sports gatherings. Vaccination will also be speeded up by reducing the interval between the second and third injection to 4.5 months for those over 45 and health workers. A reminder should have been offered to all people in these categories by mid-January.