A top health official in Norway said the country could have brought the coronavirus outbreak under control without a lockdown and urged the country not to lock down if a second wave hits.
“Our assessment now … is that we could possibly have achieved the same effects and avoided some of the unfortunate impacts by not locking down but by instead keeping open but with infection control measures,” said Camilla Stoltenberg, the head of the Norwegian Institute of Public Health, according to the Local Norway.
The agency determined that the virus reproduction rate had fallen to as low as 1.1 even before the country locked down on March 12, which suggests to her that extreme measures like closing schools were not necessary.
“The scientific backing was not good enough,” Stoltenberg said about the decision to close schools.
Stoltenberg added that the reaction to a potential second wave of the virus should not be as strict.
“I think it will take a lot. And there is a strong willingness on the part of all parties to find instruments that are more gentle and more flexible,” she said. “What is needed is a commitment from the entire population to follow the infection prevention advice.”
The comments came as Japan lifted its coronavirus state of emergency Monday, declaring that its strategy to combat the virus, which did not include a lockdown, had effectively stopped the spread of the virus. As of writing, 830 lives were lost due to confirmed coronavirus cases in the island nation out of fewer than 17,000 total cases.
In the United States, businesses in states that have not yet reopened have started defying stay-at-home orders and are opening anyway, most notably in Michigan and California.
New York, which is considered to be the worst virus hot spot in the U.S. and is still locked down, announced that the state suffered the lowest number of coronavirus deaths since March on Sunday, with a total of 73.
