Today in Norway: A roundup of the latest news on Tuesday

Oslo City Council set to slash number of electric scooters 

The city council in Oslo will today decide to cut the number of rental electric scooters in the city following a surge in accidents. 

Oslo currently has more scooters per capita than anywhere else in Europe, with 200 per 10,000 inhabitants. In comparison, Stockholm had 125 electric scooters per resident while Berlin, Paris, and Rome were well below 50. 

Scooter numbers could be cut by as much as 68 percent. The city council is proposing a limit of 8,000 scooters in the city. There are currently more than 30,000. 

In addition to this, the city council will introduce a curfew and designated areas where users have to park the scooters once they are finished. 

Norwegian drug effective against Covid-19 

A drug produced by Norwegian biotechnology company Bergenbio has been tested on seriously ill Covid-19 patients and has been shown in a study to have good effects. 

The drug, bemcentinib, was tested on 179 patients in the UK, South Africa, and India. The survival rate of those treated with the medication was 96.6 percent compared to 91.2 percent without it.

In addition to this, fewer patients using the drug needed to be put on a ventilator and the likelihood of rapid recovery and discharge increased. 

Use of facemasks on public transport dropping 

Public transport company Ruter has said that the use of facemasks has dropped to around 80 percent in Oslo. 

The transport firm conducted random sampling on both busy and quiet public transport and found the use of masks dropped from almost 100 percent to 80 percent. 

“In recent weeks, we have seen that the use of facemasks has decreased somewhat. For example, the use of masks is down to 80 percent on departures with many travellers,” Knut-Martin Løken, press officer at Ruter, told state broadcaster NRK. 

Bjørn Iversen, a senior doctor with the Norwegian Institute of Public Health, said that the fall in people using masks is partly due to infections in Oslo being at their lowest for months, meaning people feel safer without a mask. 

NIPH redistributing vaccine orders 

The Norwegian Institute of Public Health has asked municipalities that either have a surplus of doses or are set to receive more shots than they need to give the health institute notice so it can redistribute them elsewhere. 

Municipalities are being asked to cancel orders rather than stockpile doses so that areas behind in their vaccine programs can use the re-routed jabs to catch up. 

READ ALSO: What do I need to know about my Covid-19 vaccine appointment in Norway?

In addition to this, some municipalities are now mixing mRNA vaccines (Pfizer and Moderna’s vaccines) to speed up the process. 

170 new Covid-19 infections

On Tuesday, 170 new Covid-19 infections were registered in Norway, eight less than the average for the past seven days. 

In Oslo, 26 coronavirus cases have been recorded. This is one less than the seven-day average for the capital. 

Number of reported Covid-19 cases in Norway. Source: NIPH