Covid Update from Norway

Covid-19 Passports are Coming Soon

A few days ago, Sweden briefly resurfaced in the media, mainly due to the Scandinavian country’s belated announcement to also introduce the Covid-19 Passport, also known as the ‘Green Pass’. As reported by Reuters on 17 Nov. 2021,

‘The Swedish government plans to introduce a requirement for COVID-19 vaccine passes at indoor events where more than 100 people attend, a step recommended by health officials warning of a rising tide of infections in coming weeks.’

While there were some issues earlier this year, these revolved mainly around Sweden’s initial refusal to issue such Covid-19 Passports to temporary foreign residents without a Swedish ID number, as reported by The Local in late August.

This time, however, it is different only insofar as the new style of government-by-press release continues, as can be seen in the official announcement.

Be that as it may, these issues are available in English, hence they can readily be consumed. This isn’t the case with what I just spotted over at the website of the Norwegian Institute of Public Health, which published today (22 Nov. 2021) the following ‘news’ item (all emphases are mine).

Entitled, ‘[we’re] working to adapt the Covid-19 certificate for domestic use’, the sub-header explains the plans as follows:

‘The Norwegian Directorate of Health, the Norwegian Health Network and IPH [Institute of Public Health] are currently working to adapt the Covid-19 Passport for domestic use. In the short term, we aim to provide guidance on how the current solution can be adapted for use by municipalities that want to introduce the Covid-19 Passport. So far, only Tromsø municipality has signaled that they will use the Covid-19 Passport.’

This follows last week’s governmental decision to enable ‘municipalities with infection control measures [to] use a Covid-19 Passport to provide relief to fully vaccinated, to those who have undergone infection, and those who have tested negative for Covid-19 in the last 48 hours.’

If you click on that link, we may further learn the following (my emphases):

‘You do not have to be vaccinated to use the certificate.

A new regulation adopted on 19 November makes its use possible. The precondition for municipalities to start using the certificate is that they have enacted local infection control measures.

In addition, the municipalities must offer free rapid tests to those who have not been vaccinated. The events and companies that will use the Covid-19 Passport shall use a control slip [most likely a QR code] to check if the certificates are valid. Children and young people under the age of 16 do not need a Covid-19 Passport (…). The Norwegian Directorate of Health will provide guidance to the municipalities about how they can and should regulate the use of Covid-19 Passports

We want to keep society as open as possible at the same time as municipalities with outbreaks introduce local containment measures. We hope the regulations will make it easier for municipalities with outbreaks to make local decisions about infection control measures. We believe that the Covid-19 Passport will take into account the interests of the business community and private individuals to make the measures less intrusive, [Health Minister] Kjerkol says.

Partial vaccination will not grant exemptions from local restrictions.’

Returning to the IPH’s website, these are the main points:

‘Guidance for the municipalities: We are working on both a short-term and long-term solution so that municipalities can use the Covid-19 Passport. This means, among other things, that the controllers must take a manual check of those who refer to a negative corona test taken in the last 48 hours, because the settings in the control screen have not yet been adjusted to the requirements that came on Friday. In the longer term, we are working on making technical adjustments that make the control patch work easily in accordance with the adjusted national requirements, says assistant director of FHI, Gun Peggy Knudsen.’

There is another paragraph on technical issues with the earlier version and the non-matching with updated governmental decisions as well as with respect to EU/EEA Covid-19 Passport requirements. ‘Updating the rules in this control page/scree will take some time to get changed, tested and implemented.’

Moving on to non-digital users and those with no Norwegian registration or ID number, assistant director of IPH Gun Peggy Knudsen went on the record stating that ‘we have worked a lot with solutions for non-digital users and people without a Norwegian birth or D-number [a temporary registration number while the formal ID number is prepared to facilitate immigration], and work is underway to put in place solutions for issuing non-digital certificates locally’.

Finally, it is mentioned that Covid-19 Passports shall ‘only be valid in municipalities that implement local infection control measures’.

The news item concludes in the following way:

‘Until further notice, it is the blue EU version of the Covid-19 Passport that may also be used domestically to a limited extent, i.e., when and where municipalities may enact decisions on its use. Exemptions from infection control measures by showing the corona certificate do not currently apply throughout the country, but only in municipalities with local infection control measures. Only Tromsø municipality has so far clearly signaled such use. Check your own municipality about what the rules for Covid-19 Passports are there.’

This begs three questions, I think:

Why get ready now that Norway is supposedly on track to move well beyond Covid-19?

Why the gung-ho eagerness to implement these in the absence of wide-spread ‘infections’?

Take a look at these maps, courtesy of the IPH (current as of today): do you see a big provinces in darker colours, which indicate particularly high rates of infection? Are you yte scared?

Same data, different level: now the municipalities are shown: how ‘big’—and local—is the ‘outbreak’, really?

So, what do these plans tell us about the seriousness of the Norwegian government to actually move beyond Covid-19?

Call me a government sceptic, but I’m getting the feeling that the Norwegian government doesn’t want to stray too far from the pack on al matters Covid-19.