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Norway advises citizens to avoid all travel abroad

theguardian.com

21–30 of 116 posts

Re: Norway advises citizens to avoid all travel abroad

#21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Restricting travel is not mistreatment.

No, being refused service at a restaurant even though you never left the country you are residing in is xenophobia.

And now it's when you link an article with three embedded tweets of people who say that's happened to them?

Re: Norway advises citizens to avoid all travel abroad

#22
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).

Re: Norway advises citizens to avoid all travel abroad

#23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m in the same boat as you with the added wrinkle that we’re both expats, so we’re separated from each other and our families. It’s not the first time this has happened, but it’s the first time it’s been more or less legally mandated. One of my key takeaways from this experience is that I wish someone besides Facebook was making relatively inexpensive, easy-to-use home video portals that can follow you around a room…

What is this home video portal system on facebook?

> What is this home video portal system on facebook?

https://portal.facebook.com

Re: Norway advises citizens to avoid all travel abroad

#24
post #10
post #4

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.

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?

I believe Norway has similar rules, i.e you should be able to travel here from anywhere as long as you have some kind of residency.

As far as tourism is concerned, the government has divided European countries into two groups: traveling from "red" countries requires a mandatory quarantine upon entry, traveling from a "green" country does not mandate a quarantine. AFAIK all non-European countries are considered "red", meaning quarantine on entry.

Re: Norway advises citizens to avoid all travel abroad

#25
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, being refused service at a restaurant even though you never left the country you are residing in is xenophobia.

And now it's when you link an article with three embedded tweets of people who say that's happened to them?

It is happening

Re: Norway advises citizens to avoid all travel abroad

#26
post #6
post #4

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.

Meteoric rise in xenophobia? What are you talking about?

To give one example, there's a clear and measurable increase in hate crimes against Asians at the moment.

Re: Norway advises citizens to avoid all travel abroad

#27

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 d…

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.

Re: Norway advises citizens to avoid all travel abroad

#29

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 deploymen…

* 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.

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