Northern Europe during Pandemic -- Summers 2020 & 2021 & onwards

[Montanan]

Originally Posted by Godshalk

Dockhead, thank you for passing that along and the suggestion to open in Chrome. The article says that locals will be sailing. But what about those of us on foreign-flagged vessels who need to enter Finnish waters - still not clear? I would need to fly from the US to my boat in Denmark, then sail to Finland. Thanks.

FYI:

Travels through Denmark
Is the border to Denmark closed?
The Danish Government has implemented border control at all of Denmark’s borders as part of the effort to curb the spread of COVID-19/coronavirus, as of now until 10 May at 23h59. Persons wishing to enter Denmark must expect to be rejected at the Danish borders, including in Danish airports, unless they have a worthy purpose for entering, e.g. if the person is Danish, lives or works in Denmark, or has been commissioned to provide goods or services in Denmark. This change does not mean that the Danish borders are being closed for entry by Danes or others who reside in Denmark that are returning home from holiday or other stays abroad (see the question “Can I enter Denmark?”).

Persons crossing the Danish border to return to their countries of residence, e.g. Swedes who have been on holiday abroad, will be deemed to have a worthy purpose for entry. The same applies for travellers in transit in airports and for airline personnel.

The Danish authorities are continuously assessing the potential need for further measures regarding entry into Denmark.

Travel through Denmark/transit in Denmark
Transit through Denmark is only permitted if the travel has a worthy purpose, e.g. Swedes who have been on holiday abroad and wish to enter Denmark for the purpose of returning home or tourists in Sweden wishing to fly to their home country through Kastrup Airport. The transit must be completed without undue delay.



Persons wishing to enter Denmark to travel on to other countries must meet the requirements for qualifying as a worthy purpose. Persons who are not Danish citizens and who do not have Danish residence will not be permitted to travel from Sweden into Denmark for the purpose of travelling to a third country unless the trip has a worthy purpose, e.g. returning to one’s home country, participation in a funeral, or treatment at a hospital.


Foreign nationals exhibiting visible signs of illness, e.g. cough, fever, etc, will not be permitted to enter Denmark for any purpose.

According to the circumstances, foreign nationals will be asked to provide evidence of the worthy purpose.

http://https://um.dk/en/travel-and-r...irus-covid-19/

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Godshalk

Dockhead, thank you for passing that along and the suggestion to open in Chrome. The article says that locals will be sailing. But what about those of us on foreign-flagged vessels who need to enter Finnish waters - still not clear? I would need to fly from the US to my boat in Denmark, then sail to Finland. Thanks.

You can't do it until the borders are open in both countries. Expected the second week of May.


The locals are sailing, and how. The little fishing harbor where I am now is full of boats and happy families on them.

[Godshalk]

Thank you, Montanan. Yes, that is one of the things that would need to change before we could consider embarking this summer. Also, having other countries/ports open to the boat's entry; our willingness to transit airports and sit on airplanes for many hours; possibility of becoming ill away from home. We are couple in our 70s - fit and eager but not invincible.

[Montanan]

Originally Posted by Godshalk

Thank you, Montanan. Yes, that is one of the things that would need to change before we could consider embarking this summer. Also, having other countries/ports open to the boat's entry; our willingness to transit airports and sit on airplanes for many hours; possibility of becoming ill away from home. We are couple in our 70s - fit and eager but not invincible.

Godspeed, at home or away.

I'm presently enjoying the first modest loosening of aggressive travel restrictions and lockdown this weekend in The Last Best Place under The Big Sky.

Drove to our second residence on Sunday to check on that house which has been left abandoned for 2 1/2 months, all was fine, now heading to our family remote mountain retreat property to check on our cabins, will have to figure out how to move a few very large boulders from the rugged roadway and then cut a large tree that fell across the roadway just above our barn. I believe the snow will have melted from the roadway so 4 X 4 should get us in if we can get past the major obstructions. Wishing my bulldozer, or my grader or the front end loader / back hoe were up and running in the canyon so as to be able to use the heavy earthmoving equipment to shove the boulders aside, but they all need some tending to get going for the summer, so no joy with using the big Tonka Toys.

[Dockhead]

The Finns are saying that they "overshot" containment of the pandemic, such that they are facing the peak of the infection only in autumn:


https://www.helsinkitimes.fi/finland...-salminen.html

“The spread is already a bit limited. If the disease spreads too slowly, it’ll take forever until we’ve overcome this pandemic. It’s naturally good that old and sick people don’t die, but this is a balancing act.

"Salminen reiterated that he does not believe it is possible to suffocate the epidemic and that a vaccine is unlikely to be completed by year-end – let alone by the autumn.

"THL has warned the government of the possibility of a larger second wave of the coronavirus. Arto Palmu, a research manager at THL, told Dagens Nyhetern that a second wave of cases is practically unavoidable.

"Palmu also called attention to the economic effects of the strategy adopted by the government of Prime Minister Sanna Marin (SDP). 'They’ll be enormous and there’s a limit to how long these [restrictions] can be kept in place. If we let the economy to function slightly more, like in Sweden, it could be possible to keep the restrictions in place for a bit longer.'”

I am desperately interested in this because I own a building in Helsinki with restaurants and entertainment venues. Really hoping that these will be allowed to open soon and won't have to be shut down again because the lockdown, however soft it was in Finland, was too stringent and therefore counterproductive.



It's looking more and more like the Swedes really knew best of any of us what they were doing, although it is still too early to say for sure. The Swedes seem to be sitting pretty now with the peak of infections clearly past, never more than half of ICU beds occupied, and with much reduced threat of a second wave, unlike even Finland, which did not have much of a lockdown, but enough of one to have "overshot" supression of the infections, and with months of agony to go before the peak is past.

[Dockhead]

Sail-in restaurants in Finland booming:


https://yle.fi/uutiset/3-11324677


I'm still in Denmark, but it looks like the boating season in Finland has started off with a bang. Social distancing on docks is recommended.

[wolfgal]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

Some of you may know that I am a lawyer by profession, and spent some time teaching Constitutional Law. I am also a libertarian (small "l"). I am in awe of the constitutional conversation in Sweden around the legality of lockdowns. What a society. They have a civil law system which does not automatically favor civil liberties, unlike the inherently better common law system we have in the anglophone world. Nevertheless, the State there does not presume to have the right to confine people to their homes, without an actual vote of parliament and a law. Wow. Restraint in the exercise of power is the hallmark of an enlightened society, and heretofore what our own constitutional system excelled at before all others. The world has changed.

you are in the right place, Dockhead. i cannot tell you how it feels to be in lock-up here in frenchie-land, in the capital... yes, i can: like a tiger in a cage





wolfie

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by wolfgal

you are in the right place, Dockhead. i cannot tell you how it feels to be in lock-up here in frenchie-land, in the capital... yes, i can: like a tiger in a cage. . .

I have friends and loved ones scattered around the world locked up like tigers in cages, so I do appreciate, and very much, being in this part of the world. All I can say is -- hang on!

[mglonnro]

Out in the Finnish archipelago atm. Saw about five other sailboats during our short few hours sail. Absolutely more than usually!

Regarding entering and exiting Finland, it seems the border authorities have overstepped their authority and are currently acting in a manner not compatible with the constitution.

Finnish citizens have a constitutional right to leave and enter the country but the border people seem to think otherwise. This is being investigated by our Chancellor of Justice, who supervises the lawfulness of the government.

Weather: +7 degrees C, rippling rain, about 7.5 degrees in the water

[Paul L]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

........

It's looking more and more like the Swedes really knew best of any of us what they were doing, although it is still too early to say for sure. The Swedes seem to be sitting pretty now with the peak of infections clearly past, never more than half of ICU beds occupied, and with much reduced threat of a second wave, unlike even Finland, which did not have much of a lockdown, but enough of one to have "overshot" supression of the infections, and with months of agony to go before the peak is past.

There seems to be a lot of cheerleading for Sweden's approach. I can't see how you can say peak infections are clearly past. Look at the attached daily new cases for Sweden and Norway. One is clearly past a peak, it's not Sweden. Sweden has had a lot of cases in the major cities, it has not spread through the smaller towns and countryside yet.
Their death rate is very high and gets regularly explained with a lot of excuses. The primary one that these are mainly the elderly. Well Sweden has over 20% of the country 65 or older. Pretty large group, 1 in 5, to downplay their death rate.

Sweden has a population of around 10 million with 2,669 cv19 deaths. Compare this to Washington state with a population of 7 million with 824 deaths. Washington was hit early, locked down early and has had a large number of deaths in nursing homes, as Sweden did.

I'm not saying Sweden won't come out of this better than many, but the data just doesn't currently show their approach is superior.

[conachair]

Originally Posted by Paul L

There seems to be a lot of cheerleading for Sweden's approach.

Not so sure there has, by science anyway, even the prime minister has said it was a mistake. Maybe more on the web by less academic people seeing what they want to see,

[conachair]

Interesting piece in nat geo -
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/s...-response-cvd/

Take Germany versus Sweden. The two countries reported their first cases in late January, within four days of each other. Despite both being wealthy European nations with bountiful health-care resources, Sweden is currently experiencing three times as many deaths per capita as Germany, according to Our World in Data, while Germany is planning its reopening.

Fast and comprehensive action likely contributed to these contrasting outcomes, says Nicholas Grassly, an infectious disease epidemiologist who works at Imperial College London’s MRC Center for Outbreak Analysis.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by conachair

Not so sure there has, by science anyway, even the prime minister has said it was a mistake. Maybe more on the web by less academic people seeing what they want to see,

The Prime Minister grumbled a month ago. Not now. Now the Finns are having a serious discussion whether they made a serious mistake locking down harder than the Swedes, although their lockdown was exceedingly light.

[conachair]

Whatever the Swedes have been doing compared to Nowray, Finland, France and Denmarrk, it hasn't worked..


https://aatishb.com/covidtrends/

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Paul L

There seems to be a lot of cheerleading for Sweden's approach. I can't see how you can say peak infections are clearly past. Look at the attached daily new cases for Sweden and Norway. One is clearly past a peak, it's not Sweden. Sweden has had a lot of cases in the major cities, it has not spread through the smaller towns and countryside yet.
Their death rate is very high and gets regularly explained with a lot of excuses. The primary one that these are mainly the elderly. Well Sweden has over 20% of the country 65 or older. Pretty large group, 1 in 5, to downplay their death rate.

Sweden has a population of around 10 million with 2,669 cv19 deaths. Compare this to Washington state with a population of 7 million with 824 deaths. Washington was hit early, locked down early and has had a large number of deaths in nursing homes, as Sweden did.

I'm not saying Sweden won't come out of this better than many, but the data just doesn't currently show their approach is superior.

There are only two purposes of lockdowns -- eradicating the disease, as is the tactic in New Zealand, or flattening the curve so that the pandemic does not progress so far as to overwhelm health care systems.


Very few countries consider eradication to be possible, so almost all countries accept that more or less everyone will be infected within the next few months, certainly long before a vaccine is perfected and distributed.


So although Denmark has a death rate 1/3 of Sweden's, the Danes do not claim that fewer people will die in Denmark -- just that they will die over a longer period of time.


Sweden's policy has clearly succeeded SO FAR. The death rate is high only if you cherry pick the comparisons; in general it's about average for Northern and Western Europe and is far lower than locked down tight UK (264 vs 414) or locked down tight France (264 vs 379), not to mention Spain, Italy, etc. In fact the Swedish death rate is about the same as Ireland's, a country which has been praised for handling the crisis well. And Sweden's death rate may be overstated by as much as 2x compared to other European countries as Sweden counts deaths outside of hospitals and deaths were COVID-19 is only suspected.


The key fact is that the health care system is very far from being overwhelmed -- about half of ICU beds are empty in Sweden and the case rate is flat or falling. That's the whole measure of whether the policy works or not, if you are not going for eradication, and not on European country is doing that.



We still don't know what this all looks like in the long term, because this is a very complicated phenomenon and it is still early days. Many European countries are now trying to figure out how to get out of lockdown without an explosion of cases. In Poland the lifting keeps getting delayed; yet nothing there has been accomplished since the epidemic barely got started and will just rock and roll when the draconian lockdown is lifted. And the country can't afford any more lockdown -- it shot it's wad already. This does not look like good policy. Sweden, on the other hand, can maintain its current measures basically forever -- and sustainability of the measures was forefront in the thinking of the health ministry from the beginning. This is looking more and more like a smart move, compared to locking down willy nilly without figuring out what the end game is, as seems to have happened in Poland. Poland will have no choice but to open up, and with the economy already in a shambles, will have no further resources available to control the spread, whereas Sweden can tighten or loosen as they like.


When you think about whether a country's policies were successful or not, measure them against their stated purpose. If it's flattening the curve, rather than eradication, then over-fulfilling the goal by slowing down the spread too much may be counter-productive -- may make the pandemic last for months or years rather than getting it over with, and without saving any lives over the long term.