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The government advises against unnecessary domestic travel, but says the trip home for Christmas may be necessary for the individual. This leaves several uncertain in the decision.
– We really want to travel, but I wonder if they really want to visit there, says Ingelin Pernille Gil.
She and her family of six live in Drammen, but want to go on Christmas holidays to family and old friends in Måløy in Kinn municipality. As they do every Christmas. This year, however, the decision to travel has been very difficult to make.
TV Poll 2
TV 2 has asked all the mayors of the country what they think of the people who live in municipalities with high contagion pressure who travel to their municipality at Christmas.
The responses show that more than 17 percent of the country’s mayors prefer to avoid traveling to their municipality. 21 percent are unsure.
Up to 63 percent say they can visit their municipality, but several of them want precautions to be taken. 46% request a self-imposed quarantine before departure.
Find answers from your municipality in the overview at the end of the case.
Several of the municipalities in Norway have had very few or no cases of infection so far. Others have had cases that have been caught quickly. There are now fears that traffic across municipal lines could cause outbreaks that will be difficult to trace.
The fear of carrying an infection.
Kinn Township has had 54 cases of infection since the pandemic broke out. Drammen, on the other hand, has had 1,755.
These differences in the pressure of infection, the family knows when to make a decision.
– Måløy is a small place where there have been hardly any infections. I have received some cases that have come from Bergen, says Gil.
After a case of infection was detected in a Bergen student on a visit to his home in Måløy earlier this year, Ingelin has followed the comments in the media.
NOT SURE: Ingelin Pernille Gil is one of the people asking questions about this year’s Christmas trip back. Photo: Private
– I experience that people can get a bit angry and it quickly becomes a bit easy to blame each other. You don’t want to be the one to spread the infection when gossip hits the village, he says.
Now she uses the run-up to Christmas to ask her friends in Måløy if they can visit.
– The response from friends is very nice, because they want to visit us. So we can only hope that more people think like them, he says.
Great care
Ingelin and her family have prepared to leave despite the uncertainty, but are careful not to socialize outside their own home before the trip.
– Now we’re just alone all the time, and it’s shocking. It makes it more enjoyable to be able to come home to Christmas traditions and the local community in Måløy.
The head physician of the Norwegian Institute of Public Health, Trude Arnesen, has determined that traveling from an area with a high level of infection to an area with a low level of infection poses a risk of spread, regardless of whether it crosses a national border.
Several municipalities found this terrifying. But in light of TV 2’s investigation, it appears that Kinn Township, to which Måløy belongs, is one of those welcoming residents to Christmas celebrations.
– There is no ban on entering the municipality. We want people to come home and celebrate Christmas in an almost normal way, says Mayor Ola Teigen.
He emphasizes the importance of travelers being very careful about infection control when they arrive at Kinn.
If you are not sure about traveling, you can contact us and we will try to make you feel safe in the decision, says the mayor.
Regarding the self-imposed quarantine and possible tests before departure, the mayor of Kinn says he leaves that assessment to the travelers themselves.
