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Last week, about a hundred people were ordered to isolate themselves because they could be infected by a Greenlandic who was visiting abroad. During the mandatory quarantine period, that person was in close contact with family members.
Some of them tested negative, meaning the people they interacted with, including seven members of the National Assembly Finance Committee, are not at risk, according to arctictoday.com.
Although fears of an outbreak have lessened, public health officials fear that a second wave of pandemics in Europe could also reach Greenland. Health leaders recognize that it may not be possible to prevent new cases, and have proposed closing the borders with all countries except Denmark, and appealing to local people not to go abroad.
This is to reduce the risk of congestion in Greenland’s health services.
For some time, most of the people came to Greenland, except for locals returning from abroad. During the pandemic, it was strongly recommended that he refrain from traveling abroad, but last week Greenland Prime Minister Kim Kielsen mentioned that Europe’s failure to manage a new outbreak should become a warning for Greenland.
“I urge people not to leave Greenland. COVID-19 can only enter here from abroad. If that happened, the virus would start to spread to the locals,” Kielsen said.
The heads of the health authorities expressed the idea that all flights to the island should be arranged via Denmark, as this would ensure that people with COVID-19 could not reach Greenland as much as possible.
The only other country with regular flights to Greenland is Iceland, but almost all flights have been canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Under current rules, passengers on three weekly flights operated by national airline Air Greenland from Copenhagen to Kangerlusuak must check for COVID-19 no more than five days before departure and provide proof of a negative test result.
Upon arrival in Greenland, people must isolate themselves and remain in quarantine for 14 days or until they give a second negative result, testing at least five days after the disembarkation date.
Health executives see the system, unveiled this spring, as a reliable and effective protection against the outbreak when the first wave broke. The restrictions have been relaxed considerably in the summer, but now that the number of infected people in Europe is increasing, they have returned to their original level of austerity.
As a result of this decision, people infected with COVID-19 were unable to enter Greenland, Henrik L. Hansen, head of the health department, was convinced.
“The trend is worrying,” he said recently. “The rapid spread of the virus in Greenland could lead to a real catastrophe.”
Greenland’s protection from COVID-19 was largely successful because Denmark and Greenland have a joint police force, and Air Greenland has required all passengers to provide proof of a negative test result, HL Hansen said.
Only 17 cases of coronavirus have been reported in Greenland since the start of the pandemic.
In total, more than 56,000 people live in Greenland. population.
If the number of patients requiring intensive care exceeds Greenland’s capacity, patients may have to be airlifted to Danish hospitals 3,500 km away, as the Greenlandic population remains Danish citizens.
To control the spread of the coronavirus, new restrictions went into effect in Denmark on Monday. Now no more than 10 people can meet in one place. As of Thursday, masks are mandatory not only on public transport, but also in supermarkets.
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