First Covid-19 case in Spits­ber­gen

On Wed­nes­day (06 Octo­ber), Spits­ber­gen got the first con­firm­ed case of a Covid-19 infec­tion. The pati­ent was not a local or a tou­rist, but a crew mem­ber of a Rus­si­an fishing ship who got evacua­ted for medi­cal reasons near Bjørnøya, as NRK wro­te. He was flown to Lon­gye­ar­by­en and later to the uni­ver­si­ty hos­pi­tal in Trom­sø. The­re is only one inten­si­ve care bed with arti­fi­ci­al respi­ra­to­ry equip­ment in Lon­gye­ar­by­en.

The­re is no sus­pi­ci­on of fur­ther infec­tions, for exam­p­le among­st the per­so­nell of the heli­c­op­ter or in the hos­pi­tal in Lon­gye­ar­by­en. The vac­ci­na­ti­on rate in Longyearbyen’s adult popu­la­ti­on is bey­ond 90 %, and local­ly, the public opi­ni­on about pos­si­ble infec­tions is gene­ral­ly rela­xed.

Coro­na viru­s­es on high seas: a crew mem­ber of a Rus­si­an fishing ves­sel was tes­ted posi­ti­ve – the first posi­ti­ve coro­na test in Lon­gye­ar­by­en.

Until now, the­re had not been any offi­ci­al­ly con­firm­ed coro­na infec­tions in Spits­ber­gen bey­ond tho­se on board the Hur­tig­ru­ten ship Roald Amund­sen in 2020, but the Roald Amund­sen had not been to any of the sett­le­ments. The remar­kab­ly long peri­od wit­hout any coro­na infec­tions may, howe­ver, also have to do with the rather inte­res­t­ing local test­ing stra­tegy, which is descri­bed as fol­lows by some who wan­ted to get them­sel­ves or their child­ren tes­ted becau­se they had sym­ptoms which they con­side­red rele­vant: “You have sym­ptoms? Stay at home!” And later: “You don’t have sym­ptoms? Then you don’t need a test.” This is also a way to keep a place coro­na-free 🙂 at least on paper.

In late Sep­tem­ber, Nor­way has lifted most coro­na rest­ric­tions, inclu­ding tra­vel rest­ric­tions for Euro­pean count­ries and cer­tain tra­vel­lers from other count­ries, accor­ding to the Nor­we­gi­an govern­ment.

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