Norway scrapped almost all remaining COVID-19 restrictions on Saturday morning, doing away with its self-isolation and face mask requirements, ending social distancing, and limiting testing to those with symptoms, despite being in the middle of its Omicron surge, which has not yet begun to fall. The Local has the story.
“The one-metre rule is disappearing. We are taking away the recommendation on social distancing,” Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre told reporters at a press conference.
“Now we can now socialise like we did before, in nightlife, at cultural events and other social occasions. And on the way to and from work on buses, trains and ferries,” he said.
Norway’s decision to lift restrictions comes four days after Sweden lifted its restrictions on Wednesday, and twelve days after Denmark did on February 1st.
Støre put the change in restrictions to the shift in infections towards the milder Omicron variant of the COVID-19 virus.
“We can ease the restrictions because Omicron does not cause as serious disease as previous variants. Even though the infection rate is rising, the proportion who end up in hospital is low. We are well protected with the vaccine,” he said. “We can treat COVID-19 like other diseases.”
Among the changes, which apply from 10am on Saturday morning, are:
• The one-metre rule is abolished
• The requirement to wear face masks is abolished
• Only adults with symptoms are now advised to get tested for COVID-19
• The requirement to self-isolate for four days has been downgraded to a recommendation
• Kindergarten children and school pupils should stay home if ill, but can return after one fever-free day
• All remaining requirements to show a negative test on arrival at the Norwegian border have been scrappedThose who are unable or unwilling to get vaccinated and those in vulnerable groups are still recommended to wear face masks.
Under the new testing requirements, those who test positive using an antigen or lateral flow test at home are asked to register the positive test in their local municipality’s infection tracking system.
Gahr Støre stressed however that “the pandemic is not over”, and advised unvaccinated people and those in risk groups to continue practising social distancing and wear masks where social distancing is not possible.
The Norwegian Institute of Public Health (FHI) said the country had yet to see the peak of the Omicron surge, but it was expected soon.
The agency’s director Camilla Stoltenberg told reporters the number of Covid hospitalisations had risen by 40% in the past week.
That the four Scandinavian countries – Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Finland – have lifted restrictions in the middle of their Omicron wave, essentially admitting that the disease is neither serious enough nor controllable enough to make interventions worthwhile, is a hopeful sign that the ‘the Science’ may be changing. Even more remarkable is that Norway, Finland and Denmark are doing so despite Covid deaths being close to record levels. Why this should be the case even though the population is vaccinated and Omicron is milder should prompt further investigation.
Worth reading in full.
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“lockdown sceptics will remain entirely unwelcome at the hearings”. Like witnesses for the prosecution at a trial. Of course, the Inquiry is not a trial, and looks pretty close to being another form of political advertising to acquire more votes, unless they are honest and open minded.
“Consider libertarians, united with one another in being moved by the importance of freedom and knowing that they are bonded with fellow free spirits across the globe and across the ages who feel the same way.”
Er, not really. I mean, I would be glad to think that lots of other people shared my libertarian views because it would mean I was more likely to get left alone to get on with my life. But I don’t get off on “sharing a love for freedom”. I would think most libertarians don’t spend a lot of time worrying themselves about what other people think or feel, beyond their immediate family and close friends. It’s the other side who want to share.
Would love to understand the downvote…
Don’t worry, it is probably from someone who is hard of understanding.
Could be a slip, an oops but meant to tick up.
You can always tick the other thumb to undo.
Not sure – sometimes a phantom downticker (non-sceptic presumably) will downtick everything, but I’ve attracted the only one so far on this thread.
“The only consolation for said sceptics is that for all the talk of ‘commemoration’, the fact is that amongst the public at large the lockdowns are now long forgotten, and most people seem happy that they should remain so.”
I don’t find that a consolation – quite the opposite. I would very much welcome lockdowns being talked about a great deal, as it is now obvious even to the brain dead that the whole thing was a scam.
The best way to get lockdowns talked about would be a tapestry/memorial garden/travelling art exhibition remembering the vaccine fatalities/serious injuries, people who’ve died because diagnosis/treatment was delayed during lockdown, people who’ve lost their business/livelihood etc. even if such a display might be considered kitsch.
Andrew Crummy and the long covid kids……
I’m getting a bit emotional….in the rolling around on the floor sense……
BTW, has anyone seen Ammanuesis ( sp? ). I haven’t seen hide nor hair of him in ages. I miss your articles, if you’re reading! 🙂
The true purpose of the tapestry is not to comfort anyone but to cement the lie that covid was exceptional.
That tof is eloquent indeed.👍
Psychopathic, horse-faced ex-dictator of NZ has been given a Damehood. Because Clown World.
“So many of the things I am being recognised for were things that were a collective experience, that all New Zealand were a part of, and that I never felt came down to one single individual,” she said.
Ardern, who spent nearly six years as prime minister before her shock resignation earlier this year, has received the honour for services to the state.
“Over the years of being involved in the honours process, there have been a number of people that I’ve come across who have felt the same way, who I have convinced to take recognition.
“So for me this is about my family, my colleagues and all those who supported me to do that incredibly rewarding job.”
Check out this particular gem;
“And New Zealand is unique in that we do give space for people to be themselves. I think we’re a country that expects people to be authentic, we can sniff it out if you’re not.” Only if citizens comply with the ”single source of Truth” presumably…
https://www.1news.co.nz/2023/06/05/jacinda-ardern-made-a-dame-in-kings-birthday-honours/
There is a slight plus to this Mogs – it shows beyond any doubt the utter contempt that TPTB have for their fellow citizens.
I heard about this proposed tapestry some time ago and the article takes the nonsense apart admirably. Personally I find even the suggestion of a bloody tapestry wilfully insulting. As the author makes clear we now know exactly what the outcome of the whitewash, whoops, enquiry will be.
It is not a consolation. I want everyone (OK, I’ll settle for the majority) to feel the same anger at being misled, lied to, suppressed and oppressed.
Yep, agree. It’s bad enough knowing that nobody will be held to account for the terrible decisions made which were a direct cause for so much misery ( on the contrary, see my post on Horse-face ), damage and lives ruined, none of the culprit’s heads will roll, but now they want to memory-hole the entire flaming thing! Not a chance.
I think what worries me the most! is the tone of resignation and acceptance that we or those of us with some weight and sway can’t change this ‘white tapestry’?
What of the recent headlines albeit after the horse has bolted in the Telegraph, the admirable journalist record in DS, scientists and medical practitioners who are now being listened to.
Don’t call me Shirley but surely their must be something we can collectively do to pressure and expose the rotten lot.
Let’s not hope but keep up the pressure.
If the official inquiry begins to look like a whitewash, perhaps we can set up a national citizens inquiry similar to Canada: –
https://nationalcitizensinquiry.ca/citizens-inquiry-canada/
Sounds promising, perhaps through DS maybe with the help of Andrew Bridgen, he knows a lot of contacts and detail . Or ?
Or GB news Or Doctors against it all?
we need to galvanise the allies we have even though they are varied.
Lord Sumption might be good for legal advice.
These people have forcibly kept me from seeing my parents between 2019 and 2022. And no much-loved parent who died will become alive again by this cheap and shoddy way of taking revenge for one’s own grief. Further, I won’t ever get these almost three years of my life back and neither will anybody else. This is an utterly disgusting attempt by the branch covidians to depict themselves once more as victims for being affected by perfectly natural circumstance like old and frail people dying while they were really perpetrators and accomplices in the greatest crime against mankind of our times.
These people with their overarching selfishness which demanded sacrificing everyone else for their own perceived benefit and because of their stupidity deserve some serious discomforting. This was not your finest hour. It was the finest hour of your victims and the only fine hour you’ll ever have is when they start to shovel earth on your coffin because then, mankind will finally be safe from you.
Yes I agree.
Someone with power weight influence must stop this Whitewash !!! They cannot be allowed to get to their coffins without being made accountable for their rotten ways.
With you RW. A fine and heartfelt piece.
Dumping this substack here as it’s covid related. Long read but simplifies some important research showing manufacturing issues in the bioweapon vials.
https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/bio-shocks-monday-june-5-2023-c-and
Thanks, nice read, you fellow dumper you. 🙂 Actually it was a troubling read as it just highlights the uncertainties for the future and makes you worry about loved ones who’ve been jabbed but I try not to dwell. However if things don’t improve on the excess deaths, illness, disability and birth rate fronts then the future looks bleak indeed.
Had to be dumped, couldn’t wait till tomorrow – I’d have forgotten by morning!
It is a disturbing read when you have skin in the game ie family & friends. I’m the only one in my immediate family who is unjabbed, I’m sure you can appreciate my level of worry, especially for my daughter.
It fits with Agenda 21 sustainability goals.
This kind of stuff is vomit inducing at best.
Dr McGrogan:
‘ “Kitsch,” as Kundera puts it, “is the aesthetic ideal of all politicians and all political parties and movements.” This is because kitsch is fundamentally about shared emotion.’
– No, it’s because kitsch is fundamentally about dishonesty and sentimentality. Politicians – especially the careerists of the modern age – love anything that provokes sentimentality as a reaction in the electorate (such as this wretched tapestry). It happens that sentimentality is an emotion – a degraded emotion – that is indeed shared among vast numbers of people; but the fact of its being shared is a secondary consideration – and perhaps an irrelevant one – and isn’t an ‘ingredient’ of kitsch.
Dr McGrogan:
‘What makes something kitschy is not just the feeling one experiences from looking at it; it is that feeling combined with the awareness that the same feeling is collectively shared. When one is moved, one sheds a tear; kitsch inheres in the awareness that the rest of mankind is moved in the same way, and sheds a tear too.’
– Again, why is kitsch “fundamentally about shared emotion”? I don’t see the question of being “shared” as anything other than incidental, and no more relevant than when talking about any other term used in the language of art and design.
Dr McGrogan:
‘This creates a powerful bond that transcends space and time: when Bob looks at the Mona Lisa and is moved, and knows that anybody else from the past, present and future looking at the painting is moved in the same way, he knows that he is united with them in a swell of shared emotion despite it never being possible for them to have physically met.’
– The Mona Lisa is kitsch??? Naïve imitation? Insincere? Lowbrow? Poor quality? Not sure I agree! This tremendous work of art is apparently ‘kitsch’ only because of its appeal to a very large number of people – certainly not because it’s naïve, insincere, lowbrow etc. Gaudi is kitsch – Da Vinci somewhat less so. This tapestry is about dishonesty and sentimentality; it’s shared appeal is irrelevant.
What is the point of a tapestry? How can it convey the stupidity of the government response to covid? This worries me that this whole enquiry will be a waste of time and money whitewash, like most enquiries of this type are. It is time we had a proper mechanism for holding people to account for the damage done to our country. At the very least, Johnson, Hancock and anyone else involved in the covid stupidity, should be banned from ever offering themselves for election to parliament and without waiting for the next election be kicked out of parliament now. They should not be earning money at our expense after the damage they have caused.
“perspex screens have all but disappeared” alas not in my local corner shop, nor In Waitrose or other supermarkets. Costa in motorway services (bless ‘em) have got rid of the bloody monstrosities.