SARPSBORG IS THE FIRST CITY IN NORWAY to launch a mass vaccination program, after struggling with among the highest infection rates in the country. Local health officials have set up a vaccination center at a hotel that can vaccinate 2.5 percent of the city’s 56,000 residents every day. “We can vaccinate between 1,000 and 1,500 […]
Government seeks curfew permission
January 8, 2021
Alarmed by the prospect of a third wave of Corona infection, the Norwegian government has proposed imposing curfews for the first time. The proposal calls for ordering Norwegians to mostly remain indoors for as long as 21 days, but Justice Minister Monica Mæland hopes it won’t be necessary. The proposal from the health ministry comes […]
Erna orders new social shutdown
January 3, 2021
Prime Minister Erna Solberg and her government imposed a new round of even tougher social restrictions on Sunday evening, all aimed at halting the spread of the Corona virus. The bans on social gatherings take effect from Monday (January 4). “We have seen after Christmas that fewer people are testing themselves, and of those who […]
King offers hope and some consolation
January 1, 2021
It was probably one of the most direct and news-related royal holiday addresses ever: King Harald V used his annual speech to the nation on New Year’s Eve to console and support Norwegians after the country’s worst year since the Nazi German occupation during World War II. The monarch wasted no time in addressing the […]
Stricter rules loom as infection rises
December 23, 2020
Norwegians were heading into the Christmas holidays with rising uncertainty, as state and local officials warned of more social restrictions to combat another rise in infection levels. A ban on flights from the UK, meanwhile, was extended. Few people probably need a Christmas break more than Health Minister Bent Høie and other state health authorities, who’ve […]
Norway also bans flights from Britain
December 21, 2020
UPDATED: Norway remained the last Scandinavian country to allow flights from Great Britain to land, but that ended Monday morning. Health Minister Bent Høie said the new ban will continue for the next two days and may be extended. A new and highly contagious strain of the Corona virus discovered in Great Britain over the […]
Digital Nobel ‘is a call to action’
December 10, 2020
The Norwegian Nobel Committee couldn’t host its traditionally elegant Nobel Peace Prize ceremony on Thursday, and there was none of the pomp and circumstance to hail the winner in Oslo. The Corona pandemic spoiled all that, but the head of the World Food Programme gamely accepted this year’s Peace Prize digitally from the UN organization’s headquarters […]
Rules tighten for entering Norway
December 9, 2020
Norway is tightening border control but also loosening the rules for the country’s controversial “quarantine hotels.” Travelers from abroad won’t have to spend their first 10 days in one of the hotels if they can document that they’re able to stay in at least the equivalent of a residential unit with its own kitchen and […]
‘Light at the end of the Corona tunnel’
December 4, 2020
That’s how Norwegian Health Minister Bent Høie expressed reason for optimism on Friday, when announcing that the state will likely be able to offer free Corona virus vaccinations to more than a million Norwegians during the first three months of the New Year. Høie confirmed that Norway is due to receive up to 2.5 million […]
EFTA questions quarantine hotels
December 3, 2020
Debate has been swirling around Norway’s new “quarantine hotels” that opened last month, right after the country’s Corona virus containment measures were tightened. Now the European Free Trade Association’s surveillance authority (ESA) is questioning whether mandatory quarantine at the hotels complies with its rules that Norway is also obliged to follow. The EU itself is […]
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