The Easter outing and holiday is underway for many, and in the cottage municipalities in Eastern Norway, people flock to the mountains. Last year’s cabin ban put an end to many people’s favorite time to spend in the holiday home.
This year the situation is different. Because even though it is encouraged to avoid unnecessary leisure travel, there is no cabin ban like last year.
– The general recommendation to avoid traveling, also domestically, applies to Easter, however, said health director Bjørn Guldvog at a press conference last week.
There is very little noticeable, according to mayors Dagbladet has been in contact with.
Clear message to the cabin people
Quadrupling the population
At Mayor Petter Rukke in Hol, the population has multiplied already on Saturday night. The municipality has already introduced a ban on having a visit to the cabin in the period 24 March to 11 April. Normally, the municipality has just over 4,400 inhabitants, but experiences a huge increase every Easter, with visitors especially to Geilo.
– We are probably around 16,000 in Hol municipality now. If you look at the whole of Hallingdal, we are close to 60,000. It is almost like a normal Easter, says Rukke.
This means a fourfold increase in the number of inhabitants for both the municipality and the valley floor. The situation is similar with his colleague further north, in Hemsedal.
– Here we are approaching 10,000 now, ie a quadrupling of the population. It is quite normal, and will probably rise even more on Wednesday and Thursday next week. We will probably round 15,000 by a good margin, says mayor Pål Rørby to Dagbladet.
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Do the opposite in Trysil
He hopes that both the locals and visitors take infection control seriously in what may be the last stop of visits before large parts of the population have been vaccinated against corona. And although the cottage municipality is happy for tourists, it is a slightly nervous mayor who this year goes into the Easter holidays.
– I do not have a very good feeling now, I must say. But we hope for the best, says Rørby.
Much further east, more specifically in Trysil, in contrast to Hol and Hemsedal, it seems that the cottage tourists wait. Whether it will increase over the next week is currently difficult to predict. But mayor Erik Sletten is clear in his conclusion on Saturday night:
– We have so far less Easter traffic than usual, without me having any specific figures, Sletten says.
The graph that shows that it is urgent
Great excitement for post-Easter
Several of the experts are excited about what effect the infection situation will have after the Easter week. As Dagbladet has previously mentioned, Norway got significant infection peaks after both last year’s autumn holidays, Christmas and winter holidays. Now there is great uncertainty about what the effect of Easter will be.
Assistant health director Espen Rostrup Nakstad told Dagbladet before Easter that now that you see increasing infection in more and more regions, it is good advice to limit travel to relatives and friends who live elsewhere.
– As the situation has developed in recent days, you should prepare for an Easter without visits and gatherings, no matter where you are, Nakstad said.
