Please can you share your perspective as a citizen of Norway? Has lockdown been strict? Are there severe penalties if people do not comply? Or are they trusted to comply and left to their own devices without any penalties?
It has been the strictest since WW2 (which doesnt really say much as its the only one since then).
Yes it was pretty strict. Schools closed. People worked from home in vast numbers (but there was not really any law stating that, it was also partly a function of schools / day care closed so parents didn't have much choice). Ski resorts closed, no large gatherings (down to max 5, now its 20, soon 50 I think), restaurants in the capital had to pretty much close as they couldn't sell alcohol (now lifted), pubs (i.e. non-food-places) will reopen on Monday. Kids activities, sports etc all closed, now partly reopened. And the list goes on. But you were never forced to stay in your own home, could go wherever you wanted (a short ban om cabin visits during the easter school holiday, however) and domestic travel is mildly discouraged but was never forbidden except for the cabin thing.
There were some fines, but think just a very small handful were handed out, think it was about 2000 US for breaking quarantine after being confirmed infected. No shops had to close, some did due to lack of customers. Malls stayed open.
The current situation is pretty similar between Norway and Sweden. People have this rather strange concept of Sweden being a Covid-19-anarchy, but the swedes work from home in vast numbers since March, keep their distance when out, lots of stuff has closed or had to close as no customers. The main part separating Norway and Sweden was really schools and chilldren's activiteis and for some time also bars/restaurants. Now we are getting closer to the swedish apporach, but we are on a completely different part of the epidemic curve so the numers are much smaller. For Sweden the main "action" is also in Stockholm, which is much larger than Norway's capital. If you take out Stockholm all swedish numbers drop to roughly half. And also in Sweden the numer of new patients admitted to ICU has been steadily declining for weeks which doesnt really come acrooss in the international press coverage.
There is also a cultural component. In general, Swedes have a lot of respect for authorities, so it's generally sufficient to encourage people to do this and that and not that and most will comply, in Norway it has been slightly more focus on rules and regulations, but in the end it is not terribly different, at lest less than the impression one can get from the press.
At the end of the day a very important factor is that people in the Scandinavian countries have a lot of faith in their governments and are not rebellious + the social welfare net is quite generous. Yes, there has been lots of complaints from people bearing the financial burden (lowly-paid private sectore employees in general, think tourism, bars/restaurants etcetc) and vast numbers have been and still are on government support as they are temporarily suspended from work (which legally is different than being fired), but the numbers have started going down as more and more return to work.