Did Norway have zero vaccine-differentiated policies?

12 comments

1. We had a vaccine pass that you need to enter places for a certain period.

2. I have lived in Norway for the whole pandemic, and I have never been asked to show a vaccine pass for any purpose in Norway. The only times I have needed to show my vaccine pass has been when I have been visiting other countries.

   Vaccine pass requirements have never been widely implemented in Norway like in many other countries. I believe that there were some events that required vaccine passes for a short period.

3. There was some debate concerning this, and the passports were implemented but they largely went unused. This was partly because the percentage of vaccinations was so large that a passport wasn’t really needed. Also the time window from when passports became something to consider to when Norway opened up was very small.

   Vaccine passports restricting movement and access to events etc. are something that is fundamentally problematic and this cost was mainly viewed as larger than the benefits at the time. Equality is fundamental in Norwegian culture and giving access to something for someone simply based on the fact that they were lucky enough to be vaccinated early can easily be viewed as unfair.

4. Internally, Norway had one of the most lenient policies. But Norway had one of the most stringent policies for people entering the country. Unless you were vaccinated in the EU, it was pretty much impossible to enter Norway for the entirety of 2021. Even if you were vaccinated, that wasn’t enough. You had to be vaccinated within the EU.

5. Some places demanded vaccine passes. Personally, I only had to show my vaccine pass once to get into an event, and that was just a few weeks before the first lifting of restrictions. I never had to show a pass to get anywhere during the second period of restrictions after November last year. Then again, I wasn’t much out in that period. For the most part, people had to wear masks and keep a distance while indoor and on public transport, stay at your table and don’t mingle, etc. People mostly followed along with these requirements so vaccine passes really weren’t that necessary.

6. To put this in context: Over 93% of the population over the age of 18 have at least one vaccine dose. Add to that people who got vaccinated abroad. So Norway have a very high vaccine compliance, making vaccine pass rules not very effectful.

   The government strategy was not mandating anything, but to a large extent recommending things – knowing fully well that if you force people to do something, more people will oppose it.

   Making it voluntary and socially unacceptable not to vaccinate (seen as people not doing their share) and by trusting the Norwegian “dugnad” spirit, they needed to be less strict than other countries were.

7. People got vacinated so it wasn’t that important

8. In Norway it is illegal to discriminate groups before law. Equality for everyone before the law. Not one group of people, minority or majority can be treated differently before the law, or have their own laws to follow that differs from everyone else.

   That type of discrimination is illegal here, simple as that.

9. A lot of people are answering about how equality is an important thing in Norway and this is why this vaccine-pass (despite being adopted in the law) was not used.

   I think the real reason is that more than 90% of the people got vaccinated, because most people here trust the government, are educated and don’t listen to anti-vaccine bullshit. So eventually when you know that your population is almost fully vaccinated there is no reason to control who is.

10. ALLIANSEN!

11. nope, it’s not true. some larger events, like for example birkebeinerrittet has required it’s participants to have the vaccine pass. Unvaccinated people can get the vaccine pass for 1 day or something, but they have to take a pcr test to get it, whilst those who are vaccinated does not have to get tested and have it for 6 months or something after their last booster.

12. I think the vaccination pass was more for people traveling abroad to prove to security guards at various transportation areas that they had been vaccinated and were safe for travel.
    There might have also been other uses for it in some of the various areas of the country that were hit the worst, but aside from that, the vaccination pass didn’t have any function I think.

    Other than that, anyone that got sick had to take a week or two (I don’t work, so I’m not fully clear on which of the two it was) leave from work or until they could prove through three COVID-19 tests that they were not sick with COVID-19, whichever came first.

    I also think there was a period when several businesses and workplaces had mandatory ‘work-from-home’ periods, and several schools were also shut down for various periods when a student or faculty member had been COVID Positive tested.