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Only half of foreign arrivals in Norway respond to Covid checks

Frazer Norwell
Frazer Norwell - [email protected]
Only half of foreign arrivals in Norway respond to Covid checks
Oslo Gardermoen Airport. Photo by alhi1 Flickr.

Around half of all foreign arrivals respond to The National Control Centre for Immigrants, which is responsible for contacting everyone who arrives in Norway.

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The centre is responsible for checking arrivals in Norway adhere to testing and quarantine rules.

However, only half of the 150,000 arrivals have responded to the centres calls since February, according to state broadcaster NRK

Everyone who arrives in Norway also receives two text messages from authorities. So far, 360,000 messages have been sent.

Marit Winther, department director at Helfo services, which The National Control Centre for Immigrants contracted to contact arrivals, said that those who do respond are often grateful.

“In our experience, we find that most people think it’s a good thing to be contacted and get information on the regulations,” she told NRK.

She also added that 95 percent of those who do respond are aware of the rules and follow them.

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If the centre suspects there has been a breach of the rules, then it reports the breach to the municipality the arrival is quarantining in. 

The centre did not have any accurate figures for how many break the rules 

READ MORE: What happens if you get caught breaking the Covid-19 rules in Norway?

Assistant Director of Health at the Norwegian Directorate of Health, Espen Nakstad, said that the amount of people interacting with the control centre is a positive.

“Half respond, and the authorities make sure they are well informed. The rest receive text messages, so they are informed. You’d probably want to get even more people, but half is better than nothing,” he said

The health director also said that the centre is helping to keep imported infections low, even as tens of thousands of people enter the country.

“We see that we have little imported infection to Norway, even though between 35,000 and 45,000 people enter the country every week,” he said.

The centre will be in operation until the end of August.

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