Confusion of hotel in total quarantine for Zach and Mars – VG

The Briton is now 110 km away in a quarantine hotel in Gardermoen. He doesn’t quite understand why he ended up there.

Zach doesn’t want his last name printed on VG, but he would like to tell his story.

On Saturday he landed at Oslo airport. He was looking forward to seeing his fiancee Mars Hanssen again for the first time since August and celebrating Christmas and the New Year with his family in Tromsø.

I had done an investigation

Zach had prepared well before leaving Amsterdam, where he is studying. He had booked a flight to Tromsø, with a flight change at Gardermoen. He had a recent negative crowned test with him, and his fiancé had checked with the Tromsø municipality if he could pass the quarantine in Nordic Paris.

The municipality responded by email that it was not required to stay in the quarantine hotel at the point of arrival at Gardermoen, and stated in the same wording that can be found on the Government website:

“If you want to quarantine in a quarantine hotel in another municipality, there must be an opportunity for it. The precondition is that a quarantine hotel has been established in the municipality and that there is capacity for the quarantine hotel in question. ”

The municipality also stated that he had to go directly to the quarantine hotel in Tromsø and wear a face mask on the trip.

But when Zach got to border control, the confusion began. After showing the passport, confirming the negative corona test, and clarifying the purpose of the stay in Norway, he was told that he had to be quarantined.

Zach said he knew and that he would be quarantined at the Tromsø quarantine hotel.

– Because that was what we had received confirmed in the Tromsø municipality email and online, Zach tells VG.

Total confusion

Here’s how Zach describes what happened next:

The passport inspector said first that he had to go to the quarantine hotel in Gardermoen. Then Zach showed the email of the municipality of Tromsø. The inspector was confused and called a colleague. After the phone conversation, the inspector said that the policy was that he had to go to the quarantine hotel in Gardermoen, and then maybe I could go to Tromsø.

Zach asked if he could still catch the plane to Tromsø. The answer he got was that the people at the hotel possibly I could organize this for him.

After passport control, the confusion continued.

– There was no one waiting for me, so I kept walking and was very, very confused. I called Mars and asked what to do. He could have taken the plane to Tromsø, but he didn’t want to upset the police, says Zach.

He contacted the first guards he saw. It turned out that they were the ones who had to wait for him to take him to the quarantine hotel.

– They were very grateful that I told them that they were going to quarantine me, because I could have left. Then there was more confusion. I showed them the email and explained the circumstances. They had no idea who I was, says Zach.

One of the guards said it was possible that he could get on the next plane, something Zach was glad to hear, but then the shuttle bus arrived at the quarantine hotel and another guard gave a counter notification that the only alternative was that he had to go. there.

Wasted plane ticket

At the hotel, Zach spoke with a representative from the Ullensaker Township and shared his story.

– He said this happened to a lot of people and he apologized. She was very understanding, says Zach.

He talks to VG on the phone from the quarantine hotel room in Gardermoen and he is in a good mood and in a good mood, but at the same time he has given up.

– I spent money on a plane ticket and that money is lost. It was annoying. I hadn’t packed essential things like toothpaste either, because I was hoping Mars could deliver this to me through the hotel.

In Tromsø, Mars misses her fiancé.

– The ideal would have been to bring him here, because then it would have been easier to be able to deliver him a good meal, so he will be a little more welcoming inside the quarantine hotel, he says.

Pointing at each other

VG has sent Zach’s story over the phone to the border control section of the police in Gardermoen and Ullensaker Township. They point to each other:

– Border control itself is what we defend. What happens after you enter is the municipality you control. The real organization besides those who go to the corona hotels is the municipality that is in charge. It refers to a specific case that we have not had time to analyze. From what I understand, he was deemed allowed to cross the border and then the guards the municipality hired, says Terje Walvogel, a police officer in the Gardermoen border control section.

You do not want to comment on the subject beyond this.

In a circular, the Ministry of Justice has commissioned the municipalities to guarantee the quarantine hotel scheme. Travelers who have to go there must receive information after they have passed border control, and transport must be arranged there.

The circular states:

“The responsibility of the municipality for the people who will stay in quarantined hotels occurs when the person who is going to be in quarantine has passed border control.”

Municipal director of Health in Ullensaker, Gunnhild Grimstad-Kirkeby referred Sunday evening to the municipality’s communications department for a response on the case. Communication consultant Sara Gundersen writes the following in an SMS:

“The municipality of Ullensaker is responsible for the operation of the quarantined hotels on behalf of the Ministry of Justice. It is the border police who inform travelers about the quarantine obligation and it is they who make the decision about who goes to a quarantine hotel. Questions about these decisions should be directed to them. The municipality of Ullensaker has no authority to make such decisions and we have no other role than to make the hotels available to those who need it. “

VG has also asked if the municipality considers that it is the border police who will decide where Travelers are going to quarantine hotels, but have received no response.

Back at the quarantined hotel in Gardermoen, Zach ordered toothpaste fixed at the front desk, but he can still see a long way from the good food and his fiance’s fiancé.

You only have praise for the treatment you have received at the hotel during the day you have been there.

– The hotel is nice and the staff is nice, but it was not what I expected. It was a bit surprising and disappointing.

Ideally, it should have been at the Scandic Ishavshotel quarantine hotel in Tromsø. He, his fiancé and his father have tried to arrange Zach’s transfer to Tromsø, so far without success.

– I hope I can take another flight, but it seems that they are very strict in keeping me here for ten days. I am happy to be back in Norway, to be honest.

Miss fiance

People in quarantine can leave quarantined hotels for a walk. Mars was hoping to take a walk around Tromsø with Zach at a good distance and wearing a mask, but has come to terms with the fact that he will probably have to wait before meeting again.

– It would have been fine if I had stayed in a hotel in Oslo for ten days, as long as we knew. It was mainly the surprise that made it a huge disappointment, says Mars.

– We are aware that many are in this situation now. We really just hope that if it does appear in the newspaper, then there might be a little more pressure on them to put things in order.