Coro­na, Nor­way, Barents­burg …

Coro­na, get­ting to Nor­way Lon­gye­ar­by­en vac­ci­na­ti­on and test­ing

One can fol­low the almost dai­ly news and press releases on tra­vel and qua­ran­ti­ne regu­la­ti­ons in Nor­way with some asto­nish­ment. The bot­tom­li­ne is curr­ent­ly that the Nor­we­gi­an govern­ment opens for easier access to the coun­try by easing on qua­ran­ti­ne – but only for Nor­we­gi­ans. Excep­ti­ons from this simp­le rule are few at the time being. The poli­cy is curr­ent­ly to enable Nor­we­gi­an tra­vel­lers to spend at least some of the qua­ran­ti­ne time at a place of their own choice, rather than in a qua­ran­ti­ne hotel. Coro­na vac­ci­na­ti­ons are curr­ent­ly only reco­gni­zed if appli­ed in Nor­way, this may chan­ge with the intro­duc­tion of a digi­tal Euro­pean vac­ci­na­ti­on cer­ti­fi­ca­te.

Spits­ber­gen has a record-brea­king vac­ci­na­ti­on rate of more than 80 % of the adult popu­la­ti­on. Nevert­hel­ess, frus­tra­ti­on is gro­wing in Lon­gye­ar­by­en about being kind of for­got­ten while the rest of the coun­try is ope­ning up. Despi­te of the high vac­ci­na­ti­on rate, Lon­gye­ar­by­en is Norway’s only town which requi­res test­ing befo­re you can tra­ve the­re. This is not a local decis­i­on, local aut­ho­ri­ties seem to be hap­py to get rid of this test­ing regime but it is a decis­i­on that needs to be taken in Oslo. The obli­ga­ti­on to test befo­re tra­vel­ling to Lon­gye­ar­by­en also app­ly to immu­nis­ed (vac­ci­na­ted or pre­vious­ly infec­ted) peo­p­le. A rapid test is available at the air­port of Oslo Gar­de­r­moen for 1195 kro­ner (near 120 Euro), while a PCR test with result in 1-5 hours comes for 2500 kro­ner (near 250 Euro) (pri­ces from a sup­pli­er at Oslo Gar­de­r­moen). In addi­ti­on comes the chall­enge of test­ing while tra­vel­ling, which may easi­ly add an extra hotel night to one’s sche­du­le.

Some­thing much bet­ter

Barents­burg and the view over Grønfjord. Drawn by Edda Maaß, who cele­bra­ted her 18th bir­th­day recent­ly, with kind per­mis­si­on. Con­gra­tu­la­ti­ons!

But one can also just for­get all this mise­ry at least for a short while and enjoy some­thing beau­tiful, such as this dra­wing made by Edda Maaß who recent­ly fil­led 18 years. Many rea­ders will know the place 🙂

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