Covid in the North: Vulnerabilities, Lessons Learned, and Recommendations by Norway's Koronakommission

More EU integration through the crisis backdoor, more planning and centralised decision-making, as well as shutting out the public are in the works

This fourth posting—for the other parts, see here, here (pt. 2), and here (pt. 3)—concludes this mini-series on the Norwegian government’s report.

Today, we’ll look at two sections: ‘vulnerabilities’ and ‘recommendations’, to be found in the report on and after p. 446.

Vulnerabilities (p. 446; my emphases)

Curiously enough, this is a brief sub-section, with two main aspects that render Norway ‘vulnerable in a protracted, global crisis’:

Labour Immigration

Economic immigrants from all over the world come to Norway. Since 2004, many have come from EU countries in Eastern and Central Europe. The health and care services are among the sectors that have a significant share of foreign labour. Labour immigration has made a large positive contribution to the Norwegian economy. In an international crisis with sharply reduced cross-border mobility, this is of course an obvious vulnerability. Dependency on foreign labourers to keep key services running renders countries vulnerable in a global pandemic.

This became clear when the authorities introduced entry restrictions to limit infection from abroad [importsmitte]. These entry restrictions made it difficult to maintain normal operations for those parts of the business community that are dependent on foreign labour: this applies to Norwegian hospitals which, among other things, have been based on hiring intensive care nurses from Sweden, Denmark, and Finland. This investigation has shown that the authorities have not paid sufficient attention to such vulnerabilities in advance of the pandemic.

Two issues, which perhaps readers from Sweden and Denmark (here’s looking at you, Rikard), may be able to shine a light on: where do (ICU) nurses in Sweden come from? I suspect that most come from the same countries in Eastern Europe, hence this constitutes a lie of omission on part of the committee.

Secondly, sins of advance planning: how would anyone ‘plan’ an ‘unprecedented’ thing, as the ‘Covid Pandemic’? Here, I’d say that neither Sars-Cov-2 nor Covid-19 are without precedence, as we’re surrounded by respiratory viruses and illnesses virtually all the time, hence, I call BS on this one.

Let’s be clear: what’s ‘unprecedented’ in the case of the ‘Covid Pandemic’ is—government activity in the face of a pathogen that’s about a little more dangerous than the flu. To me, the notion that ‘authorities have not paid sufficient attention’ is a sign of clear and present danger: more government surveillance is coming, and it will come very soon, lest people forget the dreadful, the horrible, devastation wrought by the ‘Covid Pandemic’.

Let’s move on to the second key vulnerability, as identified by the Committee, ‘Market Mechanisms and Supply Lines’:

There are few important consumer goods in which Norway is self-sufficient. As a nation, we are therefore very dependent on international supply chains functioning as expected, and that the goods we need are available on the world market. In a local or nationally limited crisis, Norway gets access to what we need from other countries. In an international crisis where many countries in the world need the same things, we become vulnerable to a lack of access to important goods.

During the pandemic, dependence on the outside world became intensified due to the lack of emergency supplies. There are few countries that produce everything they need domestically, but many produce parts of it and can therefore be part of production chains together with other countries. During the pandemic, Norway has had few such opportunities.

The main take-away here appears to be—which is particularly important for those who claim that the ‘Covid Pandemic’ would all but ruin, if not outright reverse, globalisation—that the past two years actually increased dependence on global markets and supply chains etc.

As to the hilariously stupid admissions by accident, we may note that government has centralized micro-management of the situation, but they apparently didn’t pay (enough) attention to this particular issue, in addition to the above-mentioned ‘lack of emergency supplies’ (i.e., low preparedness).

Norway’s vulnerability to changes in the international supply lines became clear when there was a shortage of infection control equipment, and when the authorities wanted to provide the population with vaccines. In the authorities’ effort to secure vaccines for the population, Norway was dependent on goodwill and cooperation with the EU, in particular Sweden. The investigation has shown that the outcome was largely dependent on the efforts and contacts of individuals. The authorities’ work in procuring infection control equipment, as we have described in our first report, also shows how vulnerable the country is when market mechanisms and international supply lines do not function normally.

During the pandemic, Norway has been dependent on the work the EU did to secure so-called green corridors for the steady supply of essential goods. This scheme facilitated easier border crossings for vehicles and ships carrying such goods, with as few controls and procedures as possible. The system has helped to avoid unnecessary queues at the borders. The purpose of the green corridors has also been to reduce the risk of infection for transport workers

There you have it: governmental non-preparedness played out in the utter failure to obtain essential (ahem) goods, from PPE to injections. In lieu of competent planning, ‘success’ rested on personal contacts and, which particularly troubles me personally, the substantial increase in Norway’s dependence on the EU.

Please take another close look at the above-quoted statement: under the guise of an ‘emergency’, the non-EU (but EEA) member Norway has apparently done away with many of its responsibilities and duties ‘to secure…the steady supply of essential goods’.

Now, while I personally object to the very notion of extenuating circumstances. I suggest that, objectively and comparatively assessed, no such ‘emergency’, let alone a ‘pandemic’, existed that warranted the unilateral (?) abrogation of the Norwegian government’s duties to exercise their sovereignty. Instead, what has been accomplished, in my reading, is a de facto EU accession via the backdoor, with basically no debate or a referendum.

Don’t believe for a moment that these ‘emergency mechanisms’ will be done away with quickly. I’d also bet (all but our little farm) on the fact that further EU integration will occur in the near future. Citing ‘inevitability’ and ‘convenience’, as well as the ex-post rationalisation of past transgressions, the government will in all likelihood push for this in an open fashion.

Lessons Learned (pp. 447-56; again, my emphases)

I will not go through these in the same manner as above, for the simple reason of space (or the lack thereof). Instead, I’ll offer summaries with a few exploratory longer quotes and comments.

Positive Aspects—summarised as ‘we think Norwegian authorities did an overall quite good job’, in particular due to…

• Best outcomes resulted from the use of established procedures;

• Cooperation, flexibility, willingness to change, and applicability of measures were essential;

• Output-oriented communication with the people, characterised by clear, open, and honest (ahem) aims.

So, if you wish to explore these notions, go to pp. 447-48 and run the (weak) prose through Goggle Translate. You’ll see lots of self-congratulatory things, which are interesting but not really telling. Instead, let’s check out the ‘negative aspects’, which we shall do in a bit more detail.

• Authorities were ill prepared, in particular with respect to whatever preparatory work existed. Notably, the government’s contingency plans only referred influenza viruses;

• Authorities didn’t have any plans whatsoever for social distancing measures on a national level (contact tracing, testing, quarantines);

• No plans existed that envisioned a long-lasting ‘pandemic’, and there were no expectations of a general lockdown for extended, and recurring, periods of time.

Huhum, since these non-pharmaceutical interventions worked so exceptionally well, I do submit to you the following key question I had reading these lines:

No such plans existed, so, why did we do all these things this time?

Here’s the key conclusion (p. 449):

We further conclude that a contingency system based on the principle of sectoral responsibility (where each sector must assess its own risk and vulnerability), fails when no one has taken responsibility for assessing the sum of the consequences for society as a whole. We also found that the government had carried out risk assessments in each sector without anticipating how the risks in each of the sectors affected each other.

Two findings, then: first, there were too many sous-chefs, hence the menu didn’t work out. In other words, soon the authorities will instal a new Office of the Chef, which will lead to further centralisation. Secondly, that second sentence is an indictment of the government’s management capabilities, which further underscores the perceived need to ‘professionalise’ and centralise decision-making, i.e., take these important things out of the government’s hands and confer them to unelected appointees. Bottom line: brace for more, not less, technocratic authoritarianism, all in the name of the public good.

To drive this home, the Commission criticised the government’s centralised micro-management, which lead to ‘complications’ that further affected the various items listed (and which I won’t repeat here, but you may go here to my second part of this series).

The Commission holds that too many issues were brought to the government’s attention, thus so many of these issues were then handled under temporal constraints. (p. 449)

In other words: government overplayed its hand, engaged in micro-management, and they did so in a hap-hazard manner.

We believe this meant that the government did not pay sufficient attention to how the pandemic could develop, and how future developments should be handled. (ibid.)

Translation: consequently, government was driving on sight, albeit with limited visibility. Presentism at work, so to speak, and no-one thought about what to do the day after tomorrow.

Centralised decision-making under temporal constraints meant that the government did not make full use of the established crisis management system. (ibid.)

Curiously enough, the Commission has first declared that no contingency planning was in place, and now the Commission holds that government made up stuff as they stumbled along. To me, the main question is: do we want these bumbling morons to be in charge of, you know, anything?

I mean, if you read on, you’ll find these gems:

Overall, we believe [temporal constraints] mean that the government’s foundation for deciding on infection control measures was, in many cases, deficient…time pressure, many adjustments, and the fact that the government itself wanted to convey the decisions at press conferences meant that municipal doctors, police at the border, school principals, and others who were to tasked with implementation and follow-up of the infection control measures, received imprecise information and too little time to prepare.

We believe the authorities have shown the ability to learn along the way, but that it has often taken too long. (p. 450)

So, more planning would have helped, the government ignored stuff anyways, and the way things were handled didn’t help. Yet, the Commission is asking for more…planning and increased centralisation of decision-making processes, in particular once the most immediate danger had passed. You cannot make this stuff up.

Yet, it makes sense, if not for you and me, for the Commission is explicitly calling for the government to use the bureaucratic apparatus to take pressure off the authorities. In other words, while it may make sense, such a move is tantamount to use procedures that were not really useful in the first place. Hence, ossification will ensue, even though it may be avoided because the government didn’t use these structures this time around (but, I assume, ‘next time will be different’).

There’s quite a bit more, esp. in terms of the differences between decision-making processes at the governmental level and the somewhat lacking implementation. This became especially obvious in the heightened levels of infected, and the lower level of injection uptake, among ‘certain immigrant groups’ (p. 454). Imagine the curiosity of the Commission when they describe that, despite efforts to ‘translate advice’, expected results were not forthcoming (ibid.). Still, no procedures to communicate in ‘a national crisis’ were in place, hence the problems experienced locally (even though it remains questionable that ‘a national crisis’ ever existed, for most ‘cases’ were located in the Oslo metro area with little, if any, consequences for, say, Northern Norway).

The final criticism is reserved for the Health and Welfare Department, whose preparations are deemed insufficient. It is noted, among other things, that the anticipated (and real-world) deficiencies were criticised as early as 2003, i.e., almost 20 years earlier. Apparently, nothing was done, not even after the swine flu epidemic in 2009, even though ‘many actors pointed out necessary changes in ICU capacity and the need to establish elevated contingency measures in Norway’s hospitals’ (p. 456).

In short: we weren’t flying blind, but we knew what was problematic. Nothing was done, though, to address these problems, and Covid-19 has certainly served to showcase the severe limits, if not outright deficiencies, of New Public Management.

Recommendations (pp. 456-58)

Just a brief summary, followed by a brief commentary to round off this already long post.

With respect to preparatory planning, the Commission recommends more and better contingency planning, in particular concerning Norway’s supply chains.

For whatever reason, the many problems may also be addressed by what the Commission calls a ‘Diversity Perspective’ (Mangfoldsperspektivet), i.e., more efforts must be made to efficiently communicate with minority groups, because the latter doesn’t watch or follow Norwegian media.

Then there are the already-explored recommendations for further centralisation and oversight.

This will specifically include public hearings to change the already-existing frameworks (which I expect to be Trojan Horse that will allow for more technocratic command and control).

This will be greatly facilitated by the called-for ‘systematisation’ of the experiences of the past two years. Why? So that these lessons learned may be implemented seamlessly by the bureaucracy in the years to come.

Funny enough, the problem with imported labour is taken up, which means, in practice, quite likely a long and growing list of exemptions from ‘domestic’ and other measures.

Furthermore, Norway shall integrate more intensively its own health policies with those of the EU to secure more crumbs falling off the table, I suppose.

Contrary to these integrative measures, including the importation of foreign labour, the report also calls for more resources spent on healthcare services, in particular nursing personnel. This is laughable, for we’ve done the utmost not to spend money on these things, but substitute for it by importing cheaper labour from esp. Eastern Europe. Hence, to no surprise, immigration measures shall be tailored in the future.

Finally, vaccination is supposed to remain voluntary, even though healthcare personnel shall be prioritized in the future, as shall be high-risk areas (this is a very Norwegian issue, for this implies that Oslo will be the main focus in future crises).

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Buyer Beware, I’d say, for this report is quite an indictment of government policies of the past 20-25 years, which includes both centre-right and centre-left coalitions. Mistakes were made, mainly by the introduction of New Public Management and the apparently consistent dismissal of significant criticisms since at least 2003.

As I’ve written in my comment on the legacy media’s take (see here), to focus only on ICU deficiencies is certainly a quite big lie by omission. Still, the main threats I’d see are the continued backdoor integration with the EU and the establishment of an overarching office to better (ahem) coordinate crisis management in the future—which translates into: a farewell to accountability in the name of public safety.

That’s it for now. Join me tomorrow for the most recent (end-of-April) risk assessment by the Institute for Public Health.