Norway lifts finest COVID curbs on social distancing

Norway on Saturday lifted its finest COVID restrictions, scrapping social distancing and masks in crowded spaces despite a surge in Omicron infections.

“The metre is disappearing. We are taking away the advice on social distancing,” Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store told journalists at a press conference.

“Now we are able to now socialise cherish we did earlier than, in nightlife, at cultural occasions and other social times. And on the manner to and from work on buses, trains and ferries,” he mentioned.

Norway lifted most of its other COVID curbs earlier this month, including far away working, crowd dimension limits and restricted alcohol gross sales in bars and restaurants.

The requirement to isolate for four days after a obvious COVID take a look at modified into once meanwhile on Saturday downgraded to a advice, and youngsters with respiratory indicators are no longer required to win examined for COVID.

Gahr Store wired nonetheless that “the pandemic is now not any longer over”, and told unvaccinated folks and those in anguish groups to continue practising social distancing and set on masks where social distancing is now not any longer seemingly.

The Norwegian Institute of Public Health (FHI) mentioned the country had yet to see the tip of the Omicron surge, but it modified into once expected soon.

The agency’s director Camilla Stoltenberg told journalists the choice of COVID hospitalisations had risen by 40 percent in the previous week.

As of Friday, 986,851 cases and 1,440 virus-connected deaths had been recorded in Norway, where bigger than 91 percent of the population has obtained no longer less than two doses of the vaccine.

FHI estimates that three to four million folks from a population of 5.4 million will be contaminated by this summer season.

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© 2022 AFP