On Monday, Raymond Johansen’s book about how he experienced leading a city of 700,000 inhabitants through the biggest crisis in modern times comes out. “Through the crisis” describes many of the political conflicts Johansen was in the middle of during the pandemic. “We don’t do that” What the Aps Oslo summit says was portrayed as a “cockfight” between himself and Health Minister Bent Høie (H) in autumn 2020, is devoted to a separate chapter. THROUGH THE CRISIS: Raymond Johansen has written a book together with his close colleague Anders Lundell. Photo: Cappelen Damm The chapter has been named “We don’t do that”. What the city council refused to do was to follow the Directorate of Health’s advice and introduce measures as strict as the health authorities wanted. Among other things, it involved banning private gatherings of more than five people and not letting guests into nightclubs after 10 p.m. “We don’t do that,” Johansen emphasized several times at his press conference on Monday 28 September. In the Søndagsrevyen the day before, the health minister had threatened to overrule Oslo if they did not do as he said. – The country is perfectly fine In the book, Johansen downplays the conflict with Høie. He writes that “this had, after a little management, landed perfectly well”. CODE RED: Espen Nakstad came out against Raymond Johansen in his corona book. Now the city council leader is fighting back. Photo: ISMAIL BURAK AKKAN / news However, he does not hide his irritation at assistant director of health Espen Nakstad’s version of the case. It appeared in Nakstad’s book “Code Red” a year later. Here Nakstad writes that Johansen’s press conference marked that for the first time there had been party politics in handling the corona in Norway. Johansen responds to the indictment. “Espen Rostrup Nakstad seemed in retrospect to think that this was the day the infection really took hold in Norway, and that confusion prevailed after we tightened the measures.” The city councilor quotes from Nakstad’s book: “It was not entirely good to say how social one could be, whether a mask should be worn or not, or whether one should postpone social gatherings for a few weeks or not. The air simply went out of the balloon a little. The power package we tried to get the municipalities to launch never came to fruition.” Johansen himself writes: “In reality, the level of infection in Oslo was relatively stable for around a month after I gave this speech. (…) I would like to see the professional evidence that the relatively small differences between the Directorate of Health’s package and the measures we introduced – which the Minister of Health therefore stood “one hundred percent behind” – should have had any real impact on the waves of infection through it coming winter.” “Erroneously sent e-mail” Raymond Johansen can also reveal how a mistakenly sent e-mail acted as fuel on the fire. “It did not make the situation any easier that the door to our internal assessments was suddenly thrown wide open.” A draft list of measures was sent to a journalist in NTB instead of an employee with the same first name. And a few minutes later came the NTB message about “the city council’s secret list of corona measures.” Then the noise started in earnest. – Strange accusation Johansen uses the alleged cockfight to deal with the accusations that he is “politicizing” the handling of the corona. – It is a strange accusation. If a politician claims not to engage in politics, one should be wary, he writes. Johansen spends a lot of time reflecting on precisely the balancing act between strict measures to suppress the infection and the negative consequences of closure and isolation. Local pub Much has been written about mental health among children and young people. Johansen is also concerned with other groups. – Who raises their voice for those who live alone and have their primary social life in the local pub, he asks? A kind of conclusion thus becomes: “My opinion is that both the bourgeois government and our own Ap/Sp government have given too little weight to the negative consequences of closures.” “Through the crisis” was written in collaboration with Raymond Johansen’s speechwriter Anders Lundell.
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Raymond Johansen hits back at Espen Nakstad in new book – news Oslo and Viken – Local news, TV and radio
