Mayors warn Norway’s Health Minister against changing vaccine strategy

A total of 26 mayors in Møre og Romsdal warned Minister of Health Bent Høie (H) against changing the coronavirus vaccine strategy.

“The vaccine strategy must not be changed,” the mayors wrote in a letter sent to, among others, the National Institute of Public Health (FHI).

Newspaper Klassekampen first mentioned the case.

In the letter, the mayors write that they have witnessed, with great unease, “the strong pressure from central, densely populated areas in Norway on the Norwegian parliament (Storting), the government, and the health authorities.”

“We felt the need to speak out,” Herøy Mayor Bjørn-Halvor Prydz (AP) told the newspaper.

New guidelines

At 2:00 PM on Tuesday, the government will hold a press conference on the vaccine strategy going forward.

Before the weekend, Høie received new advice from the FHI regarding the strategy. 

The debate about whether densely populated cities or places with outbreaks should get a larger share of the vaccines has escalated after Molde Mayor Torgeir Dahl (H) went out in VG and criticized the Oslo City Council for the poor handling of the pandemic.

Left behind?

City Council chief Raymond Johansen (AP) has asked for more vaccines for Oslo a number of times.

When the most recent lockdown in the capital was announced on Sunday, Johansen said that Oslo is at 279th place among the municipalities in terms of how many vaccine doses have been distributed in relation to population.

In the first seven weeks of this year, Oslo has received a total of 39,945 vaccine doses, the FHI’s overview shows. In comparison, Bergen has received 15,372 doses and Trondheim 10,444.

This week, Oslo will receive a total of 788 vials of vaccines. That amounts to around 4,000 doses.

Source: © NTB Scanpix / #Norway Today / #NorwayTodayNews

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