In early March, the City Council in Oslo launched by School Councilor Inga Marte Thorkildsen (SV) the idea a new level for the infection situation in schools.
– There is too much difference between yellow and red level. We must bring the best from the red level into the measures at the yellow level, says Thorkildsen when she presented the idea on 4 March.
– It is an attempt to find solutions to a precarious situation that is depressing for us, she added.
The color code for the new level of emergency preparedness turned orange, and NIPH was immediately negative to the new level.
Yesterday, Dagbladet reported that Thorkildsen now scraps the new level, calling it all a bad idea on her part.
– I wanted to strengthen the yellow level in early March, because the infection control guide was not adapted to the situation with mutated viruses. But it was a bad idea to call this a new level with a new color code, the city council told Dagbladet.
Cancels orange level: – Bad idea
Was warned
Dagbladet can today report that the Education Agency, which is academically responsible for the schools in Oslo, warned Thorkildsen of this new level long before the city council launched the idea she has now drawn.
Director of Education Marte Gerhardsen wrote in a letter to Thorkildsen that she was “concerned” about the idea.
«We believe that schools will continue to adhere to the traffic light model with green, yellow and red levels, and are concerned that we are now moving into a new level (orange) which we warned schools against this autumn», Writes Utdanningsetatens.
The letter Dagbladet has had access to is dated 19 February, that is just over two weeks before Thorkildsen launched the orange level.
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Unknown warning
Thorkildsen says she was not aware of the warning from Gerhardsen when she came up with the idea of an orange level.
– I did not know that the agency had recently warned about the introduction of an extra level that they called orange, and thus I contributed to confusion. But there is no drama in this, we agree on the content anyway, says Thorkildsen to Dagbladet.
In early March, she argued that schools needed an “intermediate level” between red and yellow. Thorkildsen claimed that the yellow level, which FHI and the Norwegian Directorate of Health have recommended in Oslo in primary and lower secondary schools, is not adapted to the mutated virus.
Rebellion against controversial school cuts
– Think a little like Erna
Thorkildsen therefore asked the professional department in the municipality to look at what measures they can take to tighten up, without turning all the way up to the red level – which the health authorities have advised against. She calls it the “orange level.”
– In retrospect, I think a bit like Erna, that “I would not use exactly those words”, something we and the Education Agency completely agreed on, Thorkildsen says to Dagbladet.
Dramatic day in Oslo
– Meaningless
Oslo Conservatives say it is good that the Education Agency informed that the orange level is unnecessary. But the party wished that Thorkildsen had listened to his own trade union immediately.
– Orange level is empty of content and meaningless, says Mehmet Kaan Inan to Dagbladet.
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– This shows that the creative new level of city councilor Inga Marte Thorkildsen is nothing more than a new color. She has obviously figured this out on her desk. It shows that the “orange” level is without content, Kaan Inan continues.
– I wish the city council came up with better input on how schools can handle the pandemic in the classrooms. The truth is that little has been done other than to suggest a new color, the Conservative politician adds.
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