
Norway advises citizens to avoid all travel abroad - bookofjoe
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2020/aug/07/coronavirus-live-news-africa-passes-1-million-cases-checkpoints-outside-new-york-city
======
speedgoose
I'm right now in a Norwegian plane to come back from France to Norway. There
is a quarantine since midnight, which is a good thing. There is a reason that
France and Norway do not have the same numbers, French people are pretty bad
at taking the covid19 measures seriously. I'm not thinking about the
government but the population in general. It's a bit frustrating because it's
not very difficult to be careful. I have seen many restaurant employees not
wearing a mask correctly or at all, many sellers manipulating cash money
without washing their hands after, and so many people not thinking about the
distances. In some places, it's like nothing happened, and it's crowded.

Travelling abroad this summer is considered by many as stupid and careless. I
bought the trip when the numbers were good and when the governments were
allowing tourism. I think we may have to travel only when the indicators are
green for some time. It was green, it's not anymore.

By the way, some asshole passengers are coughing in the plane.

~~~
tedk-42
Wow. Just wow.

You claim French people aren't taking covid measures seriously, yet you are
behaving as a potential human carrier of the virus by travelling abroad.

And you have the nerve to complain about people coughing on the plane...

~~~
dang
Please keep the online shaming/callout culture off HN. I know it feels
justified in individual cases, but it adds up to a tragedy of the commons
effect in the end. A massive one.

[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=online%20shaming%20by%3Adang&s...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=online%20shaming%20by%3Adang&sort=byDate&type=comment&dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

~~~
doublesCs
speedgoose was doing it to an entire country, but tedk-42 is the one who gets
reprimanded?

~~~
dang
We seem to be talking about different things.

------
brink
I get that. I can give up seeing the Louvre this summer.

But my loved one is in another country and the last thing my heart needs is
more lock-downs. We need to consider what closed borders are doing to bi-
national married / unmarried couples. They've been a largely ignored
demographic during this pandemic and collateral damage due to the broad and
sweeping policies that have taken place on the borders.

~~~
Tehnix
In Denmark, at least, as long as you live, work, or even if you are a relative
to someone or a couple, you can get into the country. So there shouldn't be a
problem in your case :) (it's basically meant to only limit tourism).

Does Norway handle this differently?

~~~
culturestate
I’m not OP, but in a similar situation and our problem isn’t that we can’t
_get_ to each other, it’s the quarantine requirements on either side. What
used to be a quick weekend trip now means 4 weeks of quarantine.

~~~
kingkawn
For better and for worse in this moment of crisis the nation state is the
organizational model we’ve got.

------
4ad
I believe the link is pointing somewhere else (everchanging?).

The real URL should be
[https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2020/aug/07/coronavir...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2020/aug/07/coronavirus-
live-news-africa-passes-1-million-cases-checkpoints-outside-new-york-
city?page=with:block-5f2d567b8f08fd092ae750c9#block-5f2d567b8f08fd092ae750c9),
although I'm not sure that's stable either.

~~~
bookofjoe
Yes, your link appears stable. I thought I'd linked to it when I posted, but I
messed up, I guess. My bad.

------
mensetmanusman
Thoughts:

Aerosol covid risk is highly likely, meaning that air travel requires N95
masks and goggles (eyes are a known vector).

If you are outdoors, dilution of virions happens quickly, especially in windy
conditions. UV helps denature RNA quickly as well.

Indoor risk can be greatly mitigated with room air purifiers, but they have
not been deployed because the WHO hasn’t acted on aerosol risk. (albeit, the
deployment of air purifiers would be a larger expense than cloth masks, which
are not effective at stopping aerosol).

~~~
woofie11
* Aerosol COVID risk is basically proven, but we don't know if it is a major mode of spread. It does seem to be related to superspreader events.

* Deployment of air purifiers would be a trivial expense relative to any other economic harms of COVID19. It's mostly a question of policy catching up to science.

* Large droplets are a confirmed major source of spread. Cloth masks help reduce those. They're not full-proof even there, but they're $2. It's a no-brainer ROI.

* Even with aerosol, the risk is reduced by cloth masks. Some aerosol comes from large droplets evaporating.

~~~
ashtonkem
Cloth masks do a better job at preventing you from spreading COVID than they
do of preventing you from catching COVID. In small confined spaces I would not
want to depend on 100% mask compliance by all people to keep me safe, and I’d
want a N95.

~~~
woofie11
In a large, unconfined space, I would also not want to rely just on masks.
It's a public health issue. If I've reduced the odds of catching COVID19 by
even, say, 30%, that's an incredible impact on how much COVID19 spreads, for
the cost of a $5 mask and a minor inconvenience.

The trick is to get R0 under 1, so we have exponential decline rather than
exponential growth. Even if it's above 1, if we can bring the exponent down,
it's huge. There's no sane argument that masks don't do that.

You might want an N95, and I might want one too, but there aren't enough to go
around. For the most part, easiest thing to do is to not go out in public.

~~~
kwhitefoot
> If I've reduced the odds of catching COVID19 by even, say, 30%,

Given that the likelihood of catching it from a brief encounter with a random
passer by is in fact quite small the idea that a mask could reduce the odds
meaningfully in large unconfined spaces seems unlikely. We do not wear masks
here in Norway but we do keep our distance (except for usual idiots at
parties, etc.).

Recent clusters of infection here have all been traced to people who were in
close contact with large numbers of people for hours (wedding parties, cruise
ships, etc.). Then perhaps diligent use of masks might have helped but just
not holding the party helps more.

> For the most part, easiest thing to do is to not go out in public.

This together with simple measures like making sure one washes ones hands
seems to be what is working here.

------
kwhitefoot
The headline is a little misleading, the actual advice contains exceptions.

The relevant government webpage
([https://www.regjeringen.no/en/topics/foreign-
affairs/reisein...](https://www.regjeringen.no/en/topics/foreign-
affairs/reiseinformasjon/travel_coronavirus/id2691821/)) says:

"The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is maintaining its global advice against all
non-essential travel to all countries. This advice currently applies until 20
August. Exceptions have been made for countries and regions in the Nordic
region and in the Schengen area/EEA that meet the criteria for infection
levels set by the Norwegian Institute of Public Health. The infection
situation and local restrictions can change very quickly. Anyone thinking
about travelling abroad should consider all the potential ramifications
beforehand and should make sure that they know what the situation is in the
place they are planning to visit."

The Public Health Institute website has the details of which countries meet
the criteria for travel, see [https://www.fhi.no/en/op/novel-coronavirus-
facts-advice/fact...](https://www.fhi.no/en/op/novel-coronavirus-facts-
advice/facts-and-general-advice/travel-advice-COVID19/).

~~~
ourmandave
Mandatory quarantine time is 10 DAYS upon return from a Red Zone.

If you're a healthcare professional coming back from a Green Area they suggest
you wait for a negative test before returning to work.

Here in the U.S. it can take up to TWO WEEKS to get test results back.

Can I just 2-day Air my test to Norway?

------
Thaxll
Canada does the same:
[https://travel.gc.ca/travelling/advisories](https://travel.gc.ca/travelling/advisories)

------
ReptileMan
This is one of the aspects I like about the covid. The centre of my city
without the herds of foreign tourists and infrastructure load, the folding of
the pretentious restaurants servicing them, the empty airports. My people
exploring and having a holidays in their own country instead of visiting
"greatest hits" in others. Everything is a lot calmer, there is space
everywhere. The airbnb once more are converted to long term rentals.

Air travel probably got too cheap too fast. The world is not prepared for the
jet set class to include too many.

~~~
jobigoud
Different experience here. I live in a touristy town on the south west coast
of France, I've never seen so many people. It's very crowded. Granted it's the
peak of the peak season right now but I think there's at least 1.2x the
affluence of other years.

AirBnBs and camp sites are packed. I've established a strategy to go grocery
shopping based on the weekly rental patterns to lower exposure. Mask is
mandatory in shops which is good and well respected.

------
contingencies
travel.no

------
zvrba
Unfortunately, it's only advisory. The government should set up a 5000 NOK (at
least) "traveling fine" per person, and obligatory quarantine ("home"
confinement in state-provided guarded quarters) upon entry. THAT would
discourage people from traveling. So those who MUST travel can plan ahead and
know what they're up to, the rest will give up. AFAIK, insurance companies
announced that they'll refuse travel-insurance claims due to corona if
traveling to "red" countries.

The national health institute here opines that closing the borders has
questionable or no effect, even though most of the cases in the 1st wave got
imported from ski-resorts in Italy. I really don't get how keeping borders
open only for goods traffic won't help with reducing imported cases. Something
doesn't add up.

~~~
arp242
So rich people will shrug it off and travel anyway? What about the poor people
who MUST travel? What if a family member is dying in another country?

Just make a case-by-case judgement. Holidays are clearly stupid, but there are
plenty of much more valid reasons to travel.

~~~
devdas
If a family member is dying, skip the event.

~~~
arp242
What a unempathic remark. I missed the funeral of my uncle several years ago
due to circumstances and the hurt was very real.

~~~
devdas
That has happened for centuries earlier. Funereals are a great way to spread
disease, and losing more relatives, friends and family to disease which could
have been avoided isn't a good plan.

It does suck, but shit happens.

------
IfOnlyYouKnew
When two countries each discourage or prohibit travel to or from the other,
they cannot both be right, and the policy may be motivated by more than public
health concerns.

It's possible to make a case that travel in and of itself is risky, as you
will spend more time in enclosed spaces with strangers than usual, including
planes, airports, public transport, taxis, and hotel lobbies. But much of that
also applies to domestic travel.

Norway gets the benefit of the doubt here that, unlike _some_ large north-
American countries, it doesn't resort to cheap xenophobia as a political
strategy. And, indeed, the quote from the article offers a specific
alternative: "I think most of us have now understood the holiday is over”,
says the minister of health. That hints at a somewhat puritanical frustration
from even the thought of others enjoying themselves in these times.

~~~
sjogress
TL;DR We had it under control, but we are losing control. So we need to take
action now (limit importation of new cases and new local spread) before a new
lockdown is needed. Hence the holiday (from social distancing measures) is
over.

The problem is that Norwegians have essentially had a vacation from worrying
about Covid, since there has been more or less no new cases since May-June.
This has made the Norwegian population more relaxed, meaning more social
gatherings have been taking place, bars have reopened, etc.

However, during the summer months there was some tourism to and from other
European countries, which seems to have caused a potential new outbreak of
Covid.

So, when the health minister says "I think most of us have now understood the
holiday is over" he means that it is time to start thinking about social
distancing, thinking about work-from-home policies and your personal hygiene
again.

~~~
kwhitefoot
> we are losing control.

No. We are taking the expected action to _prevent_ a loss of control. A small
variation in infection rates is inevitable and the smaller the rate the
greater the visibility of the variation.

I agree though that a few people do seem to have decided that there is no
longer any need to worry, luckily I only see them in the pages of the
newspapers. In my daily life and weekend shopping trips, including visits to
cafés, I haven't seen any noteworthy carelessness. This is in the area
surrounding Drammen, Asker, Fornebu.

