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

[Orson]

Originally Posted by Wotname

I'm curious - what were the mistakes (so far) in Australia and against what criteria are you making the judgement immensely destructive?

The Premiers of Victoria and NSW have been feckless and unserious. Hence, no travel bubbles for fellow Aussies!

[Orson]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

Indeed. Some reopening of Schengen external borders is expected during July. No one knows to which countries.

https://www.thelocal.dk/20200610/eu-...orders-in-july


In other Nordic news:


1. Train traffic between Denmark and Sweden has been fully restored as of Monday.


2. Infection rates across the Nordic region have not spiked up despite the easing of measures. This is different from many other places. Perhaps the softness of the measures, when they were in place, influences this.


3. Still no word on opening of Danish or Finnish borders, although both countries now have travel bubbles with their neighbors other than Sweden. Finland will decide today whether to open to Denmark, Norway, and fully open to the Baltic States.



4. Germany fully opens to EU travelers on the 16th, as Estonia did last week. There are quarantines in some German Laender for travelers arriving or returning from countries with an infection rate of more than some given level.

Sailing channel RyanandSophiesailing escaped harsh conditions in Martinique back to Stockholm, via Curaçao and Schipol, and offered this joke: Swedes can’t wait for the 2 meter social distancing rule to end — then they can resume their accustomed 5 meter rule!

[Dockhead]

I'm not sure if I posted about this or not, but Finland is now open to recreational boats from ANYWHERE in the EU, including Sweden.

At this point we've sailed from Denmark to Germany to Finland to Estonia to Latvia, crossing a significant portion of the Baltic Sea. Only contact with officialdom was in Finland, where very friendly border guards took a very quick look at our passports. I did hear the Estonian Coast Guard querying a foreign boat.

Life is pretty much normal in all of the places we have visited. Masks are required in some places on public transport, and in Germany many shops require you to wear masks. Restaurants are open everywhere without any obvious social distancing requirements.


All of the countries we have visited so far, except Germany, have very low infection rates, and as far as I know there has been no spike in cases so far during the summer.


So it's turning out to be a reasonably good summer for cruising the Baltic.

[Dockhead]

Today is 5 July. We've been in this pandemic now for almost 4 months.


In Northern Europe, the virus continues to spread through populations at a slow rate, with the R0 rate well below 1.0 everywhere, at least on a national level. There have been some nasty localized outbreaks -- in NW Germany; in some parts of Northern Sweden. But in general the epidemic has died down. Intensive care units are pretty empty and deaths are down to the normal death rates, or strangely, even lower.









Other than the external Schengen borders, most of the social distancing measures have been eliminated, so life is more or less normal. Cruising is quite normal with nearly the whole Baltic now more or less completely open to cruising. I love the fact that Finland has a special category for entries into Finland by recreational boat, which is completely unrestricted to Schengen area boats.



We have been in several Baltic countries now, and it is visible that people are being much less careful than they were a couple of months ago. Will that lead to a renewed outbreak, like what is happening in the U.S.? I hope not. So far there are no signs of it here, although I suppose we will get one, no matter what, in the autumn. Why is the virus running rampant in the U.S., when it has died down so much in Northern Europe? I really have no idea. There is no obvious correlation to anything.




Professor Dunning, of the famous Dunning-Krueger effect, actually blogged recently about the danger of arm-chair epidemiology: https://www.insidehook.com/article/n...ts-coronavirus. Where bold and confident statements by non-experts are particularly good examples of the Dunning-Krueger effect.

[Exile]

As has been said . . .

"The trouble with this world is that
the ignorant are cocksure
and the intelligent are full of doubt."

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Exile

As has been said . . .

"The trouble with this world is that
the ignorant are cocksure
and the intelligent are full of doubt."

Oh, boy.

William Butler Yeats:

Turning and turning in the widening gyre***

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere***

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst***

Are full of passionate intensity.

[Exile]

Seems to be the tragic yet constantly repeated story of humankind. Yet we never learn, or perhaps are unable to get comfortable with accepting the idea that complex problems are rarely if ever amenable to simple solutions. Throw in bias confirmation and political partisanship, and all bets are off. Very strange if not surreal times . . . .

Good to read that Europe seems to be doing better with the pandemic. Let's hope the trend continues.

[Dockhead]

Borders across the Oresund between Denmark and the SW Swedish provinces of Skåne and Blekinge now open. https://www.thelocal.dk/20200710/den...ghbouring-skne. This on top of the provinces of Kronoberg and Västerbotten, to which Danish borders opened earlier.

This finally ends the injustice of cutting people off from each other across the tightly connected communities around the Oresund, when the infection rates on the Swedish side were no higher or even lower than in Denmark. The Danes are also happy:


The decision also brought jubilation from the Danish side of the border, with Helsingør's mayor Benedikte Kiær tweeting "HURRA!". Ibid.


So the situation for Swedish cruiser is looking good! Any Swedish cruiser can freely visit Finland -- Finland specifically excludes recreational boaters from any travel restrictions. We saw lots of Swedish flags in the Aland Islands a few weeks ago.

And now, if you're a resident of one of 4 Western Swedish provinces, you can cross the Oresund, too.


Even more good news for Swedish cruisers -- Norway is also open to you, if you are from Skåne, Blekinge, or Kronoberg (not Västerbotten for some reason).

[Dockhead]

More good news for Swedish cruisers in the Baltic: Germany has dropped the quarantine requirement for travelers from Sweden as of today. As Sweden now has less than 50 infections per 100,000 population, which meets the German requirement for a low risk country.

However, Russians, Americans, Brazilians, and residents of 129 other countries, are still unwelcome in Germany: https://www.rki.de/DE/Content/InfAZ/...biete_neu.html


This must be some kind of bilateral deal -- what also happened today was that Sweden dropped Germany from the list of countries for which "non-essential travel" was not recommended. The Swedish restrictions were voluntary, but apparently there was a high level of compliance with them.


Congrats! Hope you guys are having a good summer. We've been seeing more and more Swedish flags out on the Baltic.

[TeddyDiver]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

That sounds very good. Is that the way the German app works?

It will be hard to keep the data out of the hands of officials, but surely we should be forging ahead with this in any case.

Some reading: https://www.cnet.com/health/contact-...-your-privacy/


Looks like the Finnish version will launch in August: https://yle.fi/uutiset/osasto/news/f...ugust/11384825

Looks like the Finnish version will launch as announced earlier. It's now in testing phase and should be available for downlods in a couple of weeks. It anonymous and if you get an alert of being or been exposed it's up to you to get tested and inform the authorities.

Google translate from an article in Aamulehti (newspaper):

"The application does not require personal authentication and does not send any location information. Instead, it takes advantage of the Anonymous number sequences created by each application that phones detect via a bluetooth connection.

When the two phones using the application are close enough to each other for a long time, the phones store the codes they have exchanged. The application is updated every five minutes at most, depending on the device.

- The idea is that users are no more than two meters away and spend more than fifteen minutes on that distance. Only such infectious encounters are stored in the phone data. Barometers can be changed if the need arises, Kaikkonen opens.

The connection of the low-energy version does not go through the walls, so fake infections from another state should not arise.

If the user of the application becomes ill with a coronavirus, he or she can send his or her code to the background system held by Kela. Applications on other phones can then compare the stored codes to what they have encountered. If the patient's code is found in the encounters, the user will be informed of their exposure.

- Healthcare professionals provide the patient with a code that they can submit to Kela's back-end system. For the exposed, the application provides instructions for further action."

[Barbaria]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

More good news for Swedish cruisers in the Baltic: Germany has dropped the quarantine requirement for travelers from Sweden as of today. As Sweden now has less than 50 infections per 100,000 population, which meets the German requirement for a low risk country.

However, Russians, Americans, Brazilians, and residents of 129 other countries, are still unwelcome in Germany: https://www.rki.de/DE/Content/InfAZ/...biete_neu.html


This must be some kind of bilateral deal -- what also happened today was that Sweden dropped Germany from the list of countries for which "non-essential travel" was not recommended. The Swedish restrictions were voluntary, but apparently there was a high level of compliance with them.


Congrats! Hope you guys are having a good summer. We've been seeing more and more Swedish flags out on the Baltic.

We arrived in Rostock on the 14th and sailed on to Wismar. No controls, masks was mandatory in the shops.

Wismar


We de-masted in Germany and continues our journey on the channels.

Currently in France 🇫🇷

[Dockhead]

Have a great trip!


The general situation in the Baltic is fluid. A couple of days ago the Finnish government unexpectedly announced mandatory (3 months of jail!) 14 day quarantine for anyone travelling from a bunch of countries which heretofore had been considered OK, like Poland, Austria, Netherlands, Portugal.



Finland has dodged the bullet so far like a few other countries, but like a few other countries is seeing an alarming uptick in cases. Still few and from a very low base, but the dynamic is troubling. Similar things in Denmark and Poland. Sweden has had very few cases for most of the summer (less than Australia recently), but the government has announced that it is alarmed at an uptick in cases among young adults, and that measures will be tightened, in particular recommendations against unnecessary travel. Presently Sweden has the tightest restriction on gatherings (50 people) in Northern Europe.


Cruising is OK; just as of this week don't visit Poland and then Finland (Denmark is rumoured to be considering similar measures) except on your own boat.


Sweden is now welcomed into the Nordic travel bubble so there are no more restrictions, so you can cruise there.


Finland continues to have a broad exception for recreational vessels -- you are welcome from any Schengen country if you come by boat, even if you come from a country which would otherwise be a problem if you arrived by air.


The Finns are concerned about the airports; they are now doing random testing of passengers. A recent localized outbreak occurred as a result of people travelling from Macedoniaia; the Prime Minister scolded Finns for ignoring the travel warnings.

[mglonnro]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

The general situation in the Baltic is fluid. A couple of days ago the Finnish government unexpectedly announced mandatory (3 months of jail!) 14 day quarantine for anyone travelling from a bunch of countries which heretofore had been considered OK, like Poland, Austria, Netherlands, Portugal.

It was more like a confused mistake by one of the ministers! So that didn't really happen (like that) and it won't. The old rules are still in effect, but they updated the voluntary quaranteen recommendation (don't go to work or school).

Today the PM announced that they are working out some kind of system where they will "color code" countries into red-yellow-green and maybe perhaps deal out official quaranteen orders more easily to (some) people arriving from a "red" country.

Despite air, land and ship travel restrictions, the travel with pleasure craft between Schengen countries has so far been free and ok. It remains to be seen if that will change.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by mglonnro

. . . Despite air, land and ship travel restrictions, the travel with pleasure craft between Schengen countries has so far been free and ok. It remains to be seen if that will change.

Indeed. In the last couple of months we have sailed from Denmark to Germany to Finland to Estonia to Latvia to Denmark to Germany and now to Denmark, and only one time was there any control -- in Finland, where two very polite border guards came over to take a 5 second look at our passports.


So I can confirm -- in the Baltic, at least the parts we have visited, which is most of the Baltic littoral countries, there have been no issues crossing borders by recreational boat. Very normal cruising.

[mglonnro]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

Indeed. In the last couple of months we have sailed from Denmark to Germany to Finland to Estonia to Latvia to Denmark to Germany and now to Denmark, and only one time was there any control -- in Finland, where two very polite border guards came over to take a 5 second look at our passports.


So I can confirm -- in the Baltic, at least the parts we have visited, which is most of the Baltic littoral countries, there have been no issues crossing borders by recreational boat. Very normal cruising.

Same here! Our route: Finland - Gotland - Öland - Bornholm - Hel - Klaipeda - Kuressaare - Muhu - Finland.

Only check of any kind was in Lithuania/Klaipeda where the coast guard summoned us and I had to sit in the back of a car for a short interview immediately after we touched land.

Also, a bit confused about Denmark's corona restrictions I called the Danish police to ask whether it was ok to enter even though we were sailing there from Sweden. The friendly police said it was perfectly ok (since we were Finnish citizens) and wished us very welcome.