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“It’s crazy when you think about it,” said Karin Jansdotter, who lived with the five people at the research station in Antarctica for almost a year and completely avoided the pandemic.
“It just came to our knowledge then. Of all the people on the planet, we are the ones who are not experiencing a pandemic at all,” he said.
About 1,020 people lived at various stations in Antarctica during the harsh winter months in darkness and isolation. As winter draws to a close, teams are not only preparing for the summer investigation, they are also working on crucial plans to ensure colleagues do not bring COVID-19 to the continent during the summer rotation.
Even before a pandemic, only people can enter and leave Antarctica. It would be difficult to control the spread of the disease on the mainland, as medical facilities here have very limited facilities and outside assistance would have to wait a long time.
Protecting Antarctica from the first case of coronavirus is a top priority for all countries that have research stations on the continent.
It has been decided that all those who reach the mainland will have to isolate themselves for two weeks in the summer, just before their trip to Antarctica. They will do it in the last cities towards Antarctica, such as Cape Town in South Africa or Christchurch in New Zealand. They will also be tested for COVID-19.
“The top priority is to keep COVID-19 off the continent,” said Alexandra Isern, a researcher working on the US program. “The sanitary facilities are not adapted here for the possible sudden spread of the disease in the seasons.”
Due to the weather, traveling to and from Antarctica during the winter months is extremely challenging. Even in the event of an accident, the possibility of flying outside the continent may have to wait several weeks to take advantage of the airfield.
Sometimes I feel guilty for being in this bubble and watching everything from the bench.
Jansdotter, who lives at the Norwegian Troll Research Base, said he was concerned about his parents, who live in Sweden, during the dark winter months. “There were times when I was extremely worried, I asked them if they had left the house, had met someone or had acted with caution,” she recalled. “I couldn’t go home if something happened.”
Representatives of the 30 countries that send their scientists and researchers to Antarctica are working to take all precautions to prevent the coronavirus from reaching the continent. It was agreed, for example, to reduce the number of team members, as well as to limit the number of people that can be in the base.
“There was a strong international consensus that everyone should do everything possible to prevent the transmission of the disease,” Isern said. “No station could clean if there was a fireplace.”
The United States, for example, has reduced the size of the team sent this summer by as much as two-thirds. Other programs have decided not to send new researchers this year.
Although some research projects have been affected and suspended as a result, Isern says the situation is not bad. Over the past decade, a lot has been invested in automated research to minimize human interference in the Antarctic ecosystem. So now researchers can collect a large amount of data remotely.
Research in Antarctica is now more important than ever in a rapidly changing climate. Over the past half year, the average temperature on the continent has risen by almost 3 degrees and about 87 percent. glaciers on the western shore fell.
“We are seeing a change,” Ole Arve Misund, director of the Norwegian Polar Institute, told CNBC. – In summer there is a higher temperature than last year, we see water flowing over the ice. We have started to see that the warming climate is affecting the Antarctic environment. “
Even the South Pole is not immune to that. It is the coldest region on Earth: temperatures range from -60 ° C in winter to -20 ° C in summer. But the South Pole is one of the fastest warming places on the planet. Since the end of the last century, the average air temperature here has risen three times faster than the world average.
Antarctica was once accessible only to scientists and researchers, but with the growth of the tourism industry, cruises to the continent have become popular in recent years.
AFP / “Scanpix” nuotr./ “MS Roald Amundsen”
In April, a cruise ship sailing to Antarctica from South Georgia was stopped and evacuated when more than half of the passengers tested positive for COVID-19. When the pandemic hit, all trips to the stations were canceled.
Jansdotter, who will stay in Antarctica for another six months, said he learned to enjoy life in isolation. So you only need to learn very little to appreciate the most important people in your life.
“I don’t want to give up all of that. I like being here,” he told CNBC. – For people who feel at home with all this, it should be very difficult. the margin “.
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