Corona infection-China trip gave Svalbard alarm
The first person to be tested for corona infection in Norway in January 2020 did not have an infection or covid-19 anyway.
Individuals were not identified by gender or age. The authorities stated that the person in question had been tested on Svalbard and had come there from China.
In infection control meetings, he was referred to as the polar bear hunter.
Only now in the book “The year that never ended” are men publicly known – with their own permission.
Kim Holmén (66) from Stockholm is the international director of Norwegian Polar Institute, worked and lived on Svalbard and remembers himself that he was suddenly the center of a flood of rumors. Without most people knowing who they were talking about.
Neither he nor his wife Janet were infected then, nor have they been since.
Incorrect test analyzes
But Kim Holmén and wrong test results greatly contributed to getting the Norwegian crisis preparedness on its feet at record speed, a month before the first, really positive corona test.
It was a woman from Tromsø. She was able to test in Oslo right after she had landed by plane from Hubei province in China.
This summer, Kim Holmén moved back to Tromsø and the head office of the Norwegian Polar Institute. He does not know who the Tromsø woman is, who was first diagnosed with covid-19.
She was Norway’s first corona patient
– It was very comprehensive information and rumors and approaches to chaos when I returned. It’s not something that bothers me now. It is not so nice to make mistakes when a new situation arises. About not challenging me to China again, to Shanghai, says the Polar Institute’s international director to Dagbladet after he has been revealed ‘publicly.
“The year that never ended” is the book version of the corona considerations National Institute of Public Healths director Camilla Stoltenberg.
Kicks off the debate
It appears that the Norwegian professional and political health management had a crisis meeting already on Saturday 1 February last year.
Should Svalbard close?
Kim Holmén himself describes the time axis before and after the crisis meeting on 1 February – six weeks before the corona restrictions were introduced on 12 March.
– I had been to a conference on the oceans of the world in the city of Qingdao, very far from the corona city of Wuhan (1,100 kilometers, editor’s note). I had a visit from friends from Wuhan, and their children on my lap.
– Friday 24. January I went home to Longyearbyen via Copenhagen. On Sunday, January 26, I woke up with a fever, sore throat and something reminiscent of the flu. The doctor there sent my wife and me for a test in Longyearbyen this Sunday. The samples were sent to the hospital in Tromsø for analysis.
This is how we can lose Svalbard
The doctor: – Not infected
Holmén continues:
– After a couple of days I was fever-free and healthy. At the same time, rumors began to circulate testing ours were positive without my wife or I having received any direct response. The doctor in Longyearbyen did not think I was infected and gave permission for us to move outside.
– Then we went shortly after to Tromsø and on to the cabin on Karlsøy we can stay there.
– Then it was okay, wasn’t it?
– No, I had hugged Governor Kjerstin Askholt in joy of reunion when I came from China. And she and others had been close to the stage during Svalbard jazz shortly after.
Sounds alarm: – Terribly sad
Morten Abel
The book tells that it was a concert with The September When and Morten Abel.
– At the cabin on Karlsøy, we were asked to come to Tromsø to take new attempts at the hospital. Others, but not ourselves, were told that samples that were negative, ie not contagious.
– But then you could relax?
– Unfortunately not. I was going on a business trip to Washington. The United States had introduced negative corona test to escape. I had to get really angry to get my own test results from the hospital.
– It was a strange situation. By then, the United States had meanwhile closed its borders. As I said – it is allowed to make mistakes when it comes to something completely new.