Norway was put on partial lockdown on March 13. Kindergartens, schools, colleges and universities were closed down. So were all cultural events, cinemas, theatres, concerts etc. Hairdressers had to close down, and other firms doing care where distancing was impossible. The libraries very soon chose to close down, because the work to keep distance and strict hygiene levels would have been too much.
Churches were closed down. But there is usually one Sunday morning church service on national radio broadcast, and that has been going on, only without the congregation. Sometimes those have been sent on national TV as well, and now that is done every Sunday. Several churches in many denominations have produced their own TV broadcasts as well, usually distributed on Youtube.
Non-essential travel has been discouraged (rather than forbidden). Travel abroad is forbidden for health workers. Others who travel abroad have to go in quarantine for two weeks when they come back. (Some people who should have been quarantined, have been heavily fined for ignoring these rules.) All this has caused far less need for air travel, and the airline companies have far less to do and temporarily don't need their full staff. This is a problem for other businesses as well.
The government has provided some financial support both to businesses in trouble, to avoid a tsunami of bankrupt firms, and to individuals who lose their wages.
All workplaces that can, are encouraged to work from home (and mine has, I've been at home since mid-March, and we have staff meetings on
Teams every week), so people won't have to work close to each other and won't have to use public transport to get to work.
People are encouraged to stay at home as much as possible. If you have to go outside, no more than 5 people together other than your own household. But if you are 15 people together in a park, the police cannot do anything unless you cause a disturbance - breaking the distancing rules is not breaking any law.
The one rule - that had to be made into a temporary law - which caused perhaps the most controversy, was forbidding people to use their holiday cottages. These would mostly be in small municipalities with more cottage owners than local inhabitants, and the local health systems wouldn't have the capacity to handle large numbers of corona patients all at the same time. This also started as a rule, but was changed into a law when it was shown that too many people ignored the rule. The law lasted till just over Easter, and has been revoked now.
Our government claimed that they would need the ability to make new laws and instructions on short notice, without having to wait for a proper series of discussions in parliament committees and then the formal decision in parliament itself (the
Storting, led by a President). They asked for a law that would give them this ability for 6 months. (They had even thought about asking for 2 years, but they soon realised that this would be out of the question.)
The parliament discussed it and said that 6 months would be too much, and passed a law that would be for just 1 month, until April 20. (It may have been extended for another month, I only know that they were discussing such an extension.) The cottage ban law was made under this law. And the parliament also retained the right to revoke any new laws under the temporary law if they found them not to be acceptable. So our
Prime Minister does not have the chance to become a dictator (not that I think she would want to).
The library in Oslo (our capital, where I live) is still closed. But as of this week they have offered that you can order books from your nearest branch, and then agree with the branch about when to come and pick up your order. Your order will then be put in a bag and left on a table outside the branch, and you can pick it up there.
The pick-up appointment times are spread so that people will not need to queue up and get too close to each other.
You can only order from your own branch. Normally you can order from the library as a whole, and the staff will order it in from the other branches, but these days books aren't distributed to and fro, and no books are handed in, but there would still be a lot to choose from in just one branch.
As you cannot hand in your borrowed books to the library, they just keep extending your duedate. Currently it's at June 22. It's all electronic now (I remember the changing process, years and years ago), they can do the extensions from the headquarters, and then I can log in at the "My Page" and see what the current duedate is. I suspect that they don't expect to reopen until midsummer.
The headquarters used to be in a different building (from the 1930s), and now they have built a new one and closed the old one down - it was meant to have a grand opening and lots of events on March 28. We don't know when they will have the grand event now. Probably some time after the summer instead. Even if they start to use it in a small way as soon as it is allowed to open.
It is the branch that is closest to where I work, so I guess I'll be using it a lot. There is a different branch closer to where I live, too, and I've used that quite a bit as well.
The society is slowly opening up now. Kindergartens opened 2 weeks ago, and primary schools opened early this week. They have to split the classes into smaller groups to keep some distancing, though. Hairdressers etc. may open. Even some cinemas are about to open, but with no more than 50 people in the audience, to allow for distancing. Churches probably will open soon as well, also with no more than 50 people present.
But festivals with more than 500 people are forbidden until September 1.
Now we can wonder whether there will be a strong wave of outbreaks again.