Confused by the corona rules? You are not alone. Ring measures, A-, B-, C- and D-measures. National, regional and local rules. Advice and rules that change frequently have created headaches for both lay people and experts over the past year.
Tuesday 23 March. presented the government again strict national measures.
– We have spent a lot of time this time trying to make the rules as simple and clear as munequal, at the same time as they do not become unreasonable, said Minister of Health and Care Services Bent Høie (H) to Dagbladet after the press conference.
– Do not complain about Bærum
– Failed
Law professor Hans Petter Graver has previously told Dagbladet that matters about Solberg’s birthday celebration and Ap-toppenes aftermath shows that the regulations have become so complicated that it can threaten the rule of law.
Graver does not think the government has succeeded in making the regulations simple and clear.
– I still think that the rules are very difficult to find out, and I do not think they are so easy to relate to. This is worrying, as long as violations of the formal rules are punishable. I do not think the authorities have succeeded very well in making them more accessible, not even this time, he writes in an e-mail to Dagbladet.
One of the problems, he believes, is that the communication around the measures in the health authorities’ various channels is not always consistent.
– Partly there are some inconsistencies in the way the measures are presented at regjeringen.no and helsenorge.no, partly there is a mixture in the presentation of recommendations and rules in both places, Graver writes.
The main problem, however, is “the rule structure itself”, he believes, with a distinction between rules and recommendations, and between national, regional and municipal rules – as well as frequent changes.
– This is not easy, even for professionals.
Read the answer from the Norwegian Directorate of Health and the Ministry of Health and Care Services further down in the case.
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– Not easy
Graver believes that the information on the authority’s pages is often so inaccurate that one has to resort to the websites of the Lovdata foundation if one wants to know exactly what applies.
– And Lovdata is not easy to use for those who do not have special training in it, he writes.
How easy it is to get acquainted with the new rules at any given time depends on which website you check, the law professor believes.
March 24 – one day after the measures were presented, and one day before they came into force – he makes the following comparison of the information on regjeringen.no and helsenorge.no:
– If you go via regjeringen.no, on “Government introduces stricter national measures”, you see the overview «The new national measures». Here are the new recommendations and rules listed well – but the difference is not explained.
Graver reads on, to the headline «advice for Easter»
– Here there is no distinction between recommendations and rules, so you can not see from this what are orders and what are recommendations. Some of the measures mentioned are orders, even though the headline is “advice” for Easter.
It can have serious consequences, he believes:
– The conclusion is that you do not get an overview of your duties by looking at this page, and you can make mistakes in recommendations and sanctioned duties.
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– Not identical
The professor further refers to the overview of the new recommendations and rules on helsenorge.no – as it looked on 24 March.
– If you go into them, you see that they are not identical to what is written on regjeringen.no. Among other things, you do not get to know that children and young people can have 1-2 regular friends with whom they can have close contact. In return, you are informed that a maximum of ten social contacts per week is recommended. What a social contact is, you do not know.
Graver refers to a number of other examples of what he believes are discrepancies between the information on helsenorge.no and regjeringen.no.
According to the law professor, the recommendations for Easter on the two websites do not coincide at this time either.
It also does not help that helsenorge.no reproduces “advice on stress-regulating measures in the event of quarantine and isolation” side by side with practical information, he believes.
– This means that it is difficult to find out what are sanctioned duties, what is guidance and what is good advice. There is no link to where to find the formal rules for anyone who wants to find out on their own.
Here she escapes from the quarantine guards
– Have a point
Dagbladet has submitted Graver’s criticism to the Ministry of Health and Care Services, as well as the Norwegian Directorate of Health, which is responsible for the relevant information on helsenorge.no.
– The infection situation is unpredictable, and we must change measures quickly to maintain control over the spread of infection. This means that both recommendations and rules in some cases must be changed quickly. I understand well that it is demanding and strenuous to keep up, both in what applies nationally and in what applies regionally and locally.
This is what State Secretary Saliba Andreas Korkunc in the Ministry of Health and Care Services writes in an e-mail to Dagbladet.
Korkunc gives Graver a partial right:
– We are constantly working to inform about the measures, both in the media, on regjeringen.no and Helsenorge and social media, but we can definitely get better. Graver has a point in that we can be clearer on the difference between rules and recommendations. We will work on this in the future.
The reason why there is sometimes different information on regjeringen.no and helsenorge.no, Korkunc explains, is that the information on helsenorge.no is updated from the date the measures apply, while the news items on regjeringen.no often warn of measures in the future.
Hunting new lethal viruses
– Lots of information
The Norwegian Directorate of Health also confirms this.
– It is completely correct as Professor Graver writes that there were some differences between what was on regjeringen.no and what was on helsedirektoratet.no until March 25, writes functioning communications director Finn Oluf Nyquist in the Norwegian Directorate of Health in an e-mail to Dagbladet.
This is because regjeringen.no continuously publishes changes adopted by the government, he writes.
– At helsenorge.no, we also post the upcoming changes, but we also describe current recommendations and regulations, ie what the residents must relate to on the day in question. When the latest changes have been implemented, the texts on helsenorge.no will be updated accordingly. We have very good routines for this.
– Important
On 24 March, you could read about the rules that would come into force on 25 March, and the rules that applied until 25 March, on helsenorge.no.
– This is important so that people know what applies at all times and can adapt to this.
Graver is not impressed with the answers from the health authorities.
– My point is that you have to be an expert and spend a lot of time, if you are to understand what you can do without risking punishment, and what you can not do, he writes, and concludes:
– The health authorities warn against the danger of overburdening the health service. The rule of law is already significantly overburdened.
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