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Norway advises citizens to avoid all travel abroad

theguardian.com

71–80 of 116 posts

Re: Norway advises citizens to avoid all travel abroad

#71
post #53
post #33

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…

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.

This can all be overcome. Australia quarantines everyone coming in, with only few exceptions based on compassionate reasons and under strict controls.

Hell, Aussies aren't even allowed to leave the country without approval from the government at the moment.

Re: Norway advises citizens to avoid all travel abroad

#72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If governments took the situation seriously, they would prohibit travel within countries just as much as between them.

Some governments do exactly that where and when it is believed to be necessary. France, for instance, forbade people from travelling further than 100 km from home at one time.

In fact, we implemented local travel restrictions before closing and monitoring national borders (because nashion and bordeuh is fasciiiism maaaan!!)

Re: Norway advises citizens to avoid all travel abroad

#73

The headline is a little misleading, the actual advice contains exceptions. The relevant government webpage ( https://www.regjeringen.no/en/topics/foreign-affairs/reisein... ) 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 a…

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?

Re: Norway advises citizens to avoid all travel abroad

#74
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.

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. Depression, stress and loneliness all have health consequences too. Wh…

> from a disease with a 99.97% survival rate

IFR seems in the >1% range, admitadly this is skewed towards older people. Maybe that IFR is overestimated slightly, but it's far far more deadly than 0.03%

https://www.mrc-bsu.cam.ac.uk/now-casting/

Re: Norway advises citizens to avoid all travel abroad

#75
post #69
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When death rates are measured based on outcomes, as in one either recovers, or is dead, the risk is 3 to 7 percent depending on where you are in the world. (Dead people)/(recovered people) = (death rate) Doing the math based on infection ignores the fact that many cases are in progress, outcome unknown. This makes for much smaller numbers, and a less realistic risk perception based on lack of data for the scope of ri…

Calculating “death rate” with a denominator of “recovered people” is simply lying with data: of all of the covid metrics, “recovered people” is the least well reported. Of the millions and millions of people who have now had this virus and recovered without incident, only a small fraction have seen the inside of a medical facility. Only a tiny fraction of those have had “recovery” reported, and even when it is report…

Given the deaths in my peer group of known, tested, infected people, the higher number I cited makes more sense.

We shall see as more outcomes continue to be known.

We will get better at tracking that because this virus is more likely to be endemic, forced.

Having some healthy respect for this mess, rooted in basic fear and concern for the future, is just not a bad thing.

As we get better at the data related to chronic complications, that info will also give people a more solid reason to live and work differently. Fact is a whole lot more people than we think will suffer a reduction in overall health too.

Also not a bad thing.

Frankly, I believe the outcome based death rates will fall over time as we improve our will and ability to record outcomes. I do not believe it will end up being fractions of a percent.

I also believe complications, organ damage, etc... will be respectable percentages as we improve on capturing that data.

We are finding immunity does not endure. We are also finding repeat cases can vary widely in severity.

Add in the growing reality of it being endemic, and there is a solid basis for real concern.

Ideally, we all remain able to revisit all this after a full year cycle.

Re: Norway advises citizens to avoid all travel abroad

#76
post #49
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is extremely egoistic post. You, a single individual, can infect tens of persons, without even knowing it, who spread the disease further, and of whom someone will die. Is satisfying your heartache worth starting a chain of deaths? The more people feel like they're a special-case snowflakes who should be exempt from travelling restrictions, the longer this situation is going to last.

I feel this is rather unempathic towards the previous poster. Human contact – affection and love in particular – are primary human needs, and they can't just be handwaved away. You may be reasonably comfortable in your situation (as much as this entire situation gets, anyway) but not everyone is so lucky. This is not "special-case snowflakes", just a recognition that people, their circumstances, and experiences great…

I don't disagree with you that human contact is important for a great deal many of people. However, cynically speaking, death and debilitating, potentially long-lasting illness from Covid also can't be hand-waved away. It's an issue of balancing the needs of the many against the needs of the few, and unfortuantely in this instance the actions of individuals can cause incredibly amplified levels of suffering for a great many people.

There's countless examples of people all over the world not taking appropriate precautions and care when dealing with Covid. I think it's pretty obvious that you cannot trust everyone to do the right thing, and indeed there's enough people not doing the right thing for it to cause major problems.

Additionally, note that the current outbreak in Melbourne - 12500 cases, and 175 deaths (and counting) - can be traced back to a handful (i.e. 1-3) initial outbreaks due to lapses in quarantine protocols. It is absolutely, demonstrably true that individuals can cause a 'chain of deaths'. Individaul leaked cases through a lockdown can cause an explosion of cases to spiral out of control if allowed to get any traction. I would not call that wild or panicked exaggeration at all, and is most definitely based on what we know.

Lastly, it's very obviously false to claim that a hard lockdown cannot help, see New Zealand as a shining counter-example. Extremely aggressive lockdowns and widespread testing can indeed control it.

Re: Norway advises citizens to avoid all travel abroad

#77

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…

> I have seen many restaurant employees not wearing a mask correctly or at all

Compared to 0% mask usage in Norway.

Re: Norway advises citizens to avoid all travel abroad

#78

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 e…

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.

Re: Norway advises citizens to avoid all travel abroad

#79
post #69
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When death rates are measured based on outcomes, as in one either recovers, or is dead, the risk is 3 to 7 percent depending on where you are in the world. (Dead people)/(recovered people) = (death rate) Doing the math based on infection ignores the fact that many cases are in progress, outcome unknown. This makes for much smaller numbers, and a less realistic risk perception based on lack of data for the scope of ri…

Calculating “death rate” with a denominator of “recovered people” is simply lying with data: of all of the covid metrics, “recovered people” is the least well reported. Of the millions and millions of people who have now had this virus and recovered without incident, only a small fraction have seen the inside of a medical facility. Only a tiny fraction of those have had “recovery” reported, and even when it is report…

> The overall IFR for this virus is somewhere around 0.1-0.6%

Do you have a good citation for this, because the Biostatics research university at Cambridge have IFR 10 times that.

https://www.mrc-bsu.cam.ac.uk/now-casting/

Re: Norway advises citizens to avoid all travel abroad

#80
post #77

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…

> I have seen many restaurant employees not wearing a mask correctly or at all Compared to 0% mask usage in Norway.

> Compared to 0% mask usage in Norway.

That is factually incorrect.

I see several people wearing masks, at least in Oslo. Both on the subway, but also people working in grocery stores etc.

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