Norway drops all Covid restrictions to ‘live as usual’
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After 561 days of restrictions, Norway announced this weekend that it has made the decision to drop them completely into a new normal.
Norway has abandoned all of its Covid-19 measures, even social distancing, in a sweeping move that does not yet have clear consequences.
The Nordic nation’s government announced on Friday that it was time to ‘live as usual’ with Covid-19 after 561 days of experiencing some sort of restriction, whether it be site capacity limits or home stay orders.
Now Norwegians can attend restaurants, nightclubs, sporting events and everything else at full capacity, with social distancing thrown out the window.
They have even started to encourage travel outside of Europe, removing travel warnings.
The new rules will take effect on Saturday at 4:00 p.m. local time.
“It has been 561 days since we introduced the strictest measures in peacetime in Norway⦠The time has now come to return to normal daily life,” Prime Minister Erna Solberg told reporters.
“In short, we can now live as usual.”
This is despite the fact that the nation of five million people has 67% fully immunized – lower than Australia’s âmagic numberâ of reopening at 80%.
The decision did not come out of nowhere.
The extreme move is part of a four-step plan to remove all restrictions implemented on March 10 last year.
Norway was at the last stage, but it has been repeatedly postponed for fear of an increase in infections.
The country’s health minister sent a letter to municipalities asking them to alert them to prepare for the end of the restrictions.
Like most country, Norway has been hit hard by the delta strain of the coronavirus.
In total, the country has recorded nearly 186,000 local cases of Covid-19 and tragically claimed 850 deaths. By comparison, Australia has so far recorded more than 93,000 cases and 1,208 deaths.
In the past 24 hours, Norway has registered 705 new cases.
However, his health agency, the Norwegian Institute of Public Health, recommended that the company be reopened.
According to Reuters, Norway has recorded 98 infections per 100,000 inhabitants of its population.
Globally, there have been 230 million cases of Covid-19, with 4.7 million deaths and more than 6 billion doses of vaccine administered.
The 67 percent immunization figure counts the entire population, including children, not just eligible adults.
Earlier this month, the Pfizer vaccine was opened to 12-15 year olds.
According to the national health body, 90.6% of adults received their first vaccine, while 83.8 received their second dose.
That puts the country ahead of Australia, which has 50.9% of people 16 and over fully vaccinated, and 75.4% receive their first vaccine, according to the federal government.
Last week, Covid infection levels in Norway fell 33% from the previous week, while hospital admissions fell from 95 to 67 as vaccinations caught up with the virus, according to Life in Norway.
The Norwegian government has said its citizens don’t have to live normal lives for Covid if they don’t want to.
“When the authorities’ advice and rules for the most part disappear, the individual can choose for himself the risk he wishes to take and the measures he wishes to take,” they said in a statement.
Norway is the second Scandinavian country to end restrictions, following in the footsteps of Denmark which said goodbye to lockdowns on September 10.
The UK has also adopted a largely “Covid-normal” existence, although the number of cases continues to rise.
Singapore took a similar approach in July, but turned around in less than two weeks after the plan’s dismal failure.
Infections fell from eight to nearly 200 in 10 days, prompting the return of restrictions for the Asian country.
In fact, on Saturday Singapore had to tighten its restrictions even further, with only groups of two allowed in restaurants and children having to switch to home learning, despite the country having achieved a double dose rate of 80%.
The news of Norway’s new-found freedom is yet another slap in the face for New South Wales and Victorian-era residents, both of whom are in the throes of months-long lockdowns.
Sunday marks exactly three months since NSW went into lockdown in June.
As for Victoria, she is on the verge of breaking a world record that no one wants to claim – for being the most closed city in the world.
If the lockdown ends as planned on October 26, Melbourne will be stuck at home for 267 days, almost nine months in an 18-month period.
It’s far ahead of Argentina’s capital Buenos Aires, which was stranded for 257.
Dublin had 227 days of lockdown, London had 207, Prague had 201 days and Edinburgh was locked down 195 days.
Melbourne has already beaten them all.
The UK and Denmark have yet to reverse their sweeping decision to end the Covid rules entirely. It remains to be seen whether Norway will do the same.
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