Find out what’s going on in Norway on Wednesday with The Local’s short roundup of important news.
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Scooter companies respond to calls for more regulations
Several scooter companies have responded to calls to introduce curfews on their electric scooters following a sharp rise in accidents in Oslo.
In June, people involved in scooter accidents accounted for 30 percent of all patients in Oslo University Hospital’s accident and emergency room.
The hospital said most patients came in during the night at weekends, and now two companies have said they will be introducing a curfew.
Ryde, which has over 4,000 scooters in Oslo and operates in all major cities in Norway, has said that it will restrict access to its scooters between midnight and 5 am on weekends.
Bolt has also said it will introduce a curfew.
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However, market leader Voi has said it would not be introducing a curfew. Instead, it will limit scooters speed at night and implement a reactions test via its app that will be used to unlock its scooters.
High petrol prices to last throughout the summer
High petrol prices are expected to last the whole summer in Norway. Fuel prices have hit 19 kroner a litre for petrol and 17 kroner a litre for diesel.
Two reasons are driving the high prices. Firstly is the joint holiday, or fellesferie, which tends to push prices up.
Another reason is due to continuously high crude oil prices. For example, a barrel of North Sea Oil is currently trading for around 75 dollars a barrel on the Oslo Stock Exchange.
“We probably have to live with the high prices we have now through the summer. Afterwards, the number of people on the roads will start to fall, and the petrol prices will start to fall again,” analyst Bjarne Schieldrop told state broadcaster NRK.
Three quarters planning to stay at home this summer
Just under 75 percent of people in Norway are planning on staying in their home municipality or somewhere else in Norway this summer, a new survey from Norstat on behalf of NRK has found.
Less than 10 percent said they were planning a trip abroad this summer and fewer than 40 percent said it was the right decision for Norway to relax their tight border controls.
On Tuesday, 227 new Covid-19 cases were registered in Norway, a rise of 38 on the seven-day average of 189 for the Nordic country.
Coronavirus infections tripled in Oslo compared to the day before, and Covid cases were almost three times higher than the seven-day average. On Tuesday, 45 Coronavirus infections were recorded. The seven-day average for the capital is 16.
The R-number or reproduction rate in Norway is currently 0.7. This means that every ten people that are infected will, on average, only infect another seven people, indicating that the infection level is declining.
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Total number of Covid-19 cases. Source: NIPH
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