15 October: The City Government is continuing measures to prevent the coronavirus spreading
Today, the City Government has agreed to continue the measures to prevent the coronavirus spreading.
Les denne pressemeldingen på norsk.
The content of this press release may be out of date. See Advice and rules in Oslo for the measures that apply.
«We are closely monitoring the spread of the virus in Oslo and, in the current circumstances, the City Government has agreed to continue all of the preventative measures. These measures will let us keep Oslo as open as possible, at the same time as being strong enough to control the spread of the virus», said Governing Mayor Raymond Johansen (Labour).
The measures that will continue are as follows:
- Ban on private gatherings with more than 10 people
- Compulsory face masks on public transport when you can’t keep one metre distance
- Recommend using face masks in places where you can’t keep one metre distance
- Ban on events with more than 50 people without fixed seating. Up to 200 people can take part if there is fixed seating.
- Recommend registering visitors in places where people are close together over a period of time. The City Government has already made it compulsory to register guests at pubs and restaurants. This became national policy from 12th October.
- Employers should operate homeoffice working for their staff, as much as possible.
- The public should avoid using public transport
- Ban on serving alcohol from midnight. All drinking must stop within 30 minutes after that.
- Restrictions on recreational team sport for adults will continue.
The City Government is reviewing all these measures on a continuous basis, and they will stay in place until they are stopped or changed.
«We probably have to accept that we must live with Corona-measures until we have a vaccine. That’s why I am glad that people take these infection-prevention measures seriously, so that we have relatively low rates of infection, few hospitalisations and few deaths, compared with many other European cities. This means that the efforts we are all making, and the choices we make each day, have an effect. Even though many people might now feel less worried about getting infected themselves, the whole of Oslo would be affected if the pandemic broke out in the same way we have seen in other cities, meaning that we would then need to have much stricter measures. That is why it is so important that we all continue on this long march. We stand together, and we will handle this through our joint efforts», said Raymond Johansen.
In total, 10,016 people have been tested in Oslo over the last seven days, averaging 1,431 each day. The percentage who have tested positive is 3.2 % in the last seven days, or 321 people.
«The City of Oslo has good testing capacity and good systems to trace infections. A lot of the infections come from private gatherings, which is why it is important that people carry on limiting social contacts and private gatherings. I understand that this can be hard. But when we see how fast the infection has spread in other European cities, and we recall how it was here in March and April, then we really have no other choice», said Johansen.
Press contact
media@byr.oslo.kommune.no / +47 99 28 90 90 (not SMS)
Further navigation
All status reports from Oslo city council on coronavirus outbreak