The Nor­we­gi­an Insti­tu­te of Public Health (Fol­ke­hels­e­insti­tutt, FHI) has recom­men­ded to intro­du­ce com­pul­so­ry qua­ran­ti­ne for tou­rists coming from Ger­ma­ny and Liech­ten­stein, based on rising coro­na infec­tion figu­res from the­se count­ries.

“Valid in all of Euro­pe” – Coro­na virus war­ning.
(Pho­to com­po­si­ti­on. This is in rea­li­ty of cour­se the famous polar bear war­ning sign).

The Nor­we­gi­an govern­ment has to make a decis­i­on whe­ther or not such rest­ric­tions will be intro­du­ced. Gene­ral­ly, the govern­ment will most likely fol­low the FHI’s recom­men­da­ti­ons. The Nor­we­gi­an thres­hold for the intro­duc­tion of rest­ric­tions is an infec­tion rate of 20 per 100,000 inha­bi­tants within 14 days (two weeks and not one, as was erro­n­eous­ly writ­ten here in an ear­lier ver­si­on of this artic­le). Accor­ding to the Robert Koch-Insti­tu­te, a fede­ral agen­cy respon­si­ble for dise­a­se con­trol and pre­ven­ti­on in Ger­ma­ny, the figu­re amounts to 10.2 aver­a­ged for Ger­ma­ny as of Tues­day, 25 August for the last 7 days, and hig­her figu­res occur in cer­tain are­as. So far, the Nor­we­gi­an govern­ment has made regio­nal decis­i­ons only for Scan­di­na­vi­an count­ries.

If the Nor­we­gi­an govern­ment deci­des to intro­du­ce tra­vel rest­ric­tions for Ger­may and Liech­ten­stein, then they are expec­ted to come into force on Satur­day at 00:00. The FHI has alre­a­dy sent text mes­sa­ges to Nor­we­gi­an mobi­le pho­ne num­bers in Ger­ma­ny with a war­ning that com­pul­so­ry qua­ran­ti­ne may app­ly for tra­vel­lers ente­ring Nor­way later than Fri­day.

Again, Lon­gye­ar­by­en had polar bear visi­tors, and not just once: a polar bear that had tried to break into seve­ral huts in Hior­th­hamn, on the north side of Advent­fjord just 2.5 km away from Lon­gye­ar­by­en, was scared away by the poli­ce (Sys­sel­man­nen) with fla­re gun shots.

Polar bear inspec­ting a hut in Hior­th­hamn near Lon­gye­ar­by­en (archi­ve image).

Not much later, a fema­le bear and a cub came to the same area. In this case, the aut­ho­ri­ties deci­ded quick­ly to anaes­the­ti­se the bears and to fly them away with a heli­c­op­ter. A simi­lar ope­ra­ti­on ear­lier this year had had a fatal out­co­me for the bear, an event that later attrac­ted sub­stan­ti­al cri­ti­cism in the public but also from rele­vant Nor­we­gi­an aut­ho­ri­ties. As a con­se­quence, the rou­ti­nes were impro­ved this time: Jon Aars, lea­ding polar bear sci­en­tist of the Nor­we­gi­an Polar Insti­tu­te (NP), was per­so­nal­ly pre­sent, tog­e­ther with a vet – a new pro­ce­du­re for the NP. A dif­fe­rent drug was used and the bears were given addi­tio­nal oxy­gen during the flight and an anti­do­te upon arri­val to give them an acce­le­ra­ted wake-up, a pro­cess that was also super­vi­sed this time, as Aars told Sval­bard­pos­ten.

As the two bears were known to be resi­dent in Isfjord, the­re were flown to the nor­thwest part of this fjord, rather than to a remo­ter area such as Nord­aus­t­land or Edgeøya, as is com­mon in such cases.

The bears were said to be well. The mother is 15 years old and rela­tively thin, some­thing that is not unu­su­al con­side­ring her age and the sea­son. Nevert­hel­ess, she weig­hed seve­ral 100 kg. Most likely, they had recent­ly found some­thing to feed on. The cub weighs 49 kg and is said to be in good con­di­ti­on.