Director of the Norwegian Directorate of Health, Bjørn Guldvog, fears many choose not to stay at home, despite cold symptoms.
According to a recent population survey from the Norwegian Directorate of Health, four out of ten choose to go to work and school, even if they sniff. That worries the health director.
– I’m worried about that. Earlier during the pandemic, nine out of ten were at home when they were ill, says Guldvog.
He says it increases the pressure on the health services, and fears the consequence of people leaving home with illness may be that the infection spreads faster in the population.
– Then we can get more people in hospitals with serious illness. We want to avoid that.
Exactly how ill one must be is a difficult line to draw, but most people know when they are ill with respiratory disease, Guldvog believes.
– Stay home
He points to sore throat, fever, runny nose and other respiratory symptoms as reasons to stay home.
– When you start to have minor symptoms and no longer have a productive cough, it is possible to return to work and school, says the health director.
He has a clear appeal to anyone who experiences respiratory symptoms.
– CLEAR ADVICE: The Directorate of Health’s director, Bjørn Guldvog, says you should stay at home if you experience cold symptoms. Photo: Jonas Been Henriksen / TV 2
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– The clear advice now through the winter is to stay at home when you are ill with respiratory disease.
Want closer dialogue
Guldvog says that the Norwegian Directorate of Health wants a closer dialogue with employers, but that they already have a good dialogue with several of the working life organizations.
– No one benefits from many people going to work with illness. We provide ongoing advice and recommendations on the factors that prevent the population from being at home when they are ill.
As regards school pupils who go to school with cold symptoms for fear of exceeding the absence limit, it is not the Norwegian Directorate of Health that decides the rules. Guldvog points out that the Ministry of Education and Research makes decisions regarding the absence limit in schools, but that they provide advice and recommendations.
– Can be a tough winter
Together with the National Institute of Public Health, the Norwegian Directorate of Health is working on packages of measures to quickly gain control of places where infection is on the rise. But it is not just the coronavirus that is causing headaches in the near future.
– It can be a pretty tough autumn and winter with a lot of respiratory infections. Not only covid, but also RS virus and eventually flu virus as well. Therefore, it is important to have a reasonable control over the spread of the covid virus, says Guldvog.
He points out that it is possible that it will take less for us to catch a cold and get infectious diseases this year. It can increase the total load, if many become very ill at the same time.
– It can tie up a lot of resources in the health services, both in the municipalities and in the hospitals, which can mean that we are not able to provide the best treatment for our patients.
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