Northern Norway municipalities defy Justice Minister Monica Mæland’s (H) request to drop closed municipal boundaries and quarantine for the people coming from the south.
Several municipalities have set up guards on the municipal border and automatically introduced quarantine for people who have traveled south of Dovre.
The Prime Minister has for several days asked for municipalities not to impose their own strict travel restrictions that go beyond national rules.
Tromsø municipality was among the first to implement its own quarantine rules, and only persons performing social-critical functions have been excluded. But Tromsø will not comply with Maeland’s request, reports NRK.
-“The municipality will not comply with the request of the Minister of Justice to comply with the national guidelines,” says Mayor Gunnar Wilhelmsen.
He justifies the rules that so far there is little spread of the Coronavirus in the north. He also believes that the University Hospital in Northern Norway must be protected.
Neither does Alta plan to change their quarantine rules. Municipal Superintendent Frode Øvrejord says they are holding on to the decision until they are eventually given an order from the government that it must be repealed.
© NTB Scanpix / #Norway Today
The northern municipalities are just doing “social distancing” geopolitically, and I don’t understand why the national government is objecting, as long as necessary travel north is allowed even if the necessary visitors are quarantined, facemasked, and/or kept at a “social distance.”
Trying to force the northern municipalities to drop their self-isolation efforts is going to make people up there feel *threatened* by the southerners and could be … geopolitically … disastrous.
I hope the government re-considers its stance on this and just lets it go … for Norway’s sake.