“Now it’s serious,” said Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre at a press conference in Oslo on Monday evening. Among other things, there is therefore a complete and nationwide stop when serving alcohol: restaurants, bars and hotels are not allowed to serve alcohol for four weeks.
There are also stricter rules for public events, in cultural life and for organized leisure activities. Those who can work from home should do so, said Støre. Universities and vocational schools are to switch to online teaching. The use of masks is being expanded to other places. According to the government, all regulations come into force on Wednesday night and initially apply for four weeks – that is, over the entire holiday period.
The tightening of the measures follows warnings from the national health institute FHI of a dramatically deteriorated Omikron situation. The variant will soon dominate in the country and will cause a wave in December with many sick people and hospital admissions as well as a significant burden on the health system and society, according to a risk assessment by the authority on Monday.
According to a preliminary FHI scenario, it is estimated that there could be between 90,000 and 300,000 new Omicron cases per day in just three weeks if measures do not significantly slow the epidemic. However, the agency pointed out that such calculations should be interpreted with caution because of the great uncertainty about the most important properties of the virus variant.
Source: Nachrichten
