Ahead of the big winter season, the health service in both the large alpine and cabin municipalities of Trysil and Hemsedal is ready to take care of injuries and “ordinary” illness.
But not omikron or other corona infection across municipal boundaries.
Therefore, the municipalities give similar advice to the guests:
Anyone who tests positive and feels in bad shape should go home and get medical help there.
With 6,600 inhabitants, Trysil is the only municipality in the Inland with a declining infection trend. As one of the country’s largest cottage municipalities with a large ski resort, Trysil expects 40,000 guests from outside for Christmas and New Year.
HYTTEBY: Fageråsen in Trysil, here before last Easter. Photo: Lise Åserud / NTB.
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Opens test station
– What happens if an outbreak in Trysil spreads immediately?
– Our emergency rooms are set up to handle injuries and health problems as in a normal season before the pandemic. And there will be an open test station for covid-19 daily between 10-17. But we are not set up to handle any major outbreaks of infection across municipal boundaries. We ask everyone who tests positive and feels in bad shape to go home and seek help from their local health service. It is also important that visitors do not get more close contacts here than those you travel with if it can be avoided, says municipal chief physician Hanna Rydlöv in Trysil to Dagbladet.
Do not fear infection from the outside
– Do you fear infection from foreign guests?
– Swedes, Danes and Britons are the largest groups from other countries. They’re coming this winter too. Danes and Swedes are well acquainted with infection control in neighboring countries.
– And Englishmen are good at using face masks. In addition, they are met with a lot of concrete information when they arrive. Infection from outside is not the biggest fear now, says Trysil’s municipal chief physician.
Both the tourism industry and the municipality’s health service are well prepared for a large influx.
– Those who work in the ski resorts and with tourists otherwise, have learned a lot about infection control since the pandemic started. In addition, there are a couple of other factors that are in Trysil’s favor. There seems to be less infection outdoors. Most recently during the government’s tightening earlier this week, the prime minister called for outdoor life. And Trysil is known as a destination for families and small groups, which meet regularly. And the employees on the alpine slopes are well-trained that skiers should keep their distance in the lift queues, the municipal chief points out.
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Infectious flowering in Hemsedal
The call from Hemsedal is also clear. Mayor Pål Rørby (Sp) asks the many ski and cabin guests to be “especially attentive”.
– Everyone who feels a little small, we recommend that you drive to your home municipalities and health care there. Otherwise, the health people here in Hemsedal are prepared to take care of injuries and other things that happen in a normal winter, he says.
Despite the flourishing of cases of infection in the last couple of weeks, Hemsedal municipality has control over the situation in the run-up to Christmas and before the Christmas and New Year weekend.
The government’s closure of alcohol service makes it difficult for the après ski resorts, but otherwise most restaurants are open.
It is good with snow on the alpine slopes, and mayor Pål Rørby (Sp) welcomes both skiers and cabin people with the distance and infection control rules that apply.
Russian roulette with jobs
60 cases of infection
– Our municipality has retained some of the preparedness in relation to the release that was this autumn. And it looks like we’ve got it back, especially when it comes to tracing infections. There are and have been around 60 cases of infection in Hemsedal, both in kindergartens, schools and visitors, says the mayor to Dagbladet.
The very first case of omicron infection was found on Monday this week, but there is no “wild infection” in the municipality with 2,500 inhabitants in the ridge between east and west.
On good ski days, there are often twice as many in Hemsedal, the peak season 10 times as many on skis and in cabins.
– The omikron-infected was in contact with a person who had been traveling.
– Stay home
Vinje in Telemark is one of the country’s largest cottage municipalities.
The Easter holiday almost two years ago came so abruptly after the start of the pandemic that mayor Jon Rikard Kleven (Sp) attracted national attention with his warnings about outbreaks in a municipality with long distances and far to hospitals.
A municipality with 3,700 permanent residents simply did not have the health service with the capacity to deal with outbreaks among 25,000 Easter guests.
And Kleven was denounced as a “Nazi mayor”.
Before Christmas and New Year now, the Vinje mayor comes with a much clearer “welcome” to the municipality’s cabin people – as long as they are reasonably sure that they are not carriers of coronavirus in one or another variant.
Outbreak after the third dose
– Now we have equipment
– The big difference is that we now have infection control equipment such as bandages and Plexiglas. The Easter holiday in 2020 came right after the pandemic start in March. We did not have such equipment, and we knew little or nothing about what could come, says mayor Kleven to Dagbladet the next day the government’s sharp tightening of infection control at the same time as the growth of omicron infection.
Vinje municipality has registered twelve people who are infected with covid-19. None of them have been diagnosed with omicron as an infection.
– With a couple of seasons of experience, there has been very little outbreak of infection in the cabins. And after almost two years, most people are far better prepared to protect themselves and others, says the Vinje mayor.
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