The Sars­Cov-2 virus keeps bothe­ring the world, and this includes the Arc­tic. Omi­kron seems to have arri­ved in Lon­gye­ar­by­en. The­re were three posi­ti­ve Coro­na tests in Lon­gye­ar­by­en during the Christ­mas holi­days, all of them con­cer­ning per­sons who had recent­ly arri­ved from main­land Nor­way whe­re Omi­kron is well estab­lished, so Knut Sel­mer, medi­cal doc­tor and respon­si­ble for hand­ling infec­tious dise­a­ses at the hos­pi­tal in Lon­gye­ar­by­en, assu­mes that Omi­kron has come to Spits­ber­gen. In addi­ti­on, the­re are seve­ral per­sons in qua­ran­ti­ne and test results keep coming in, as Sval­bard­pos­ten reports.

Coro­na has come to Spits­ber­gen, and this seems to include the Omi­kron vari­ant.

Sel­mer expects this to be the begin­ning of a major wave of infec­tions, just as else­whe­re in the world. He does not think it is pos­si­ble to keep Spits­ber­gen coro­na-free in the future, but con­siders it high­ly important to delay and flat­ten the cur­ve. Ever­y­bo­dy who arri­ves in Lon­gye­ar­by­en needs to get tes­ted and Nor­way has recent­ly tigh­ten­ed regu­la­ti­ons con­cer­ning, among­st others, face masks. The aim in Lon­gye­ar­by­en is to keep school, kin­der­gar­tens and other ser­vices espe­ci­al­ly for child­ren and youth open as long as pos­si­ble.

Lon­gye­ar­by­en has, at least, a very high vac­ci­na­ti­on rate. Near 700 per­sons got vac­ci­na­ti­ons in Decem­ber, most­ly boos­ter injec­tions, but also a cou­ple of pri­ma­ry vac­ci­na­ti­ons. The next mass vac­ci­na­ti­on in Lon­gye­ar­by­en is sche­du­led for 11 Janu­ary.

Immer­hin hat Lon­gye­ar­by­en eine sehr hohe Impf­quo­te. Im Dezem­ber wur­den rund 700 Per­so­nen geimpft, wobei es über­wie­gend um Auf­fri­schungs­imp­fun­gen ging. Es gab aber auch eini­ge Erst­imp­fun­gen. Die nächs­te, gro­ße Impf­ak­ti­on in Spitz­ber­gen ist am 11. Janu­ar geplant.

In spi­te of Coro­na, even in spi­te of Omi­kron,
the sun will rise and shi­ne again over Spits­ber­gen in 2022.
But it will take some time.

This is pro­ba­b­ly the last one of more than 100 blog and news ent­ries on this web­site in 2021. I will, of cour­se, con­ti­nue in 2022. Thank you for rea­ding, wel­co­me back and hap­py new year!