...okay, that's the one depressing thing about living in Northern
Europe. I _like_ the "always cloudy" weather, but the long nights...
Totally feel you. ¸land is pretty dark already.
Actually, the controversy here is that the regional government (since we have semi-autonomous rule under Finland) decided to take a page from the
neoliberal route [let's say "Swedish" playbook]. I will explain.
In an island province/semi-micronation that is dependent on tourism and shipping for the economy, we juggled strategic lockdowns, closings of specific schools/grades at schools, and lots of masking. Practically, 99% of everyone were on board, since our position as a Baltic shipping bridge (and as a
tourist spot) is essential. Even if the culture is "finlandssvenska", there is a cultural commonality with the mainland with the Finnish "sisu": grit, resilience, stoic determination. It reflects the very typical Finnish "well,
it sucks, but we tough it out for the best overall outcome."
As such, as noted, when they recommended [not legally enforced] masking,
almost everyone did. When they recommended limiting things like lunch
buffets, etc. most of the restaurants in Mariehamn made special carry out
lunch specials, or in the case of my favorite pizza/Italian place [which
hosts a daily lunch buffet of really great brick-oven pizza... not CiCi's bullshit like in the States], they would have carry out specials and have aluminum baking trays of lasagna at the local grocery store for sale. We have had some social spread [especially last Christmas season], but the islanders have been very diligent. I think most of my friends and coworkers have at one point opted to be tested at the drive-up kiosk outside the regional hospital
at some point over the last 2 years because they woke up with what turned out to be just a cold.
As such, during times when there were zero cases and no social spread, we
went back to normal. During the high of tourist season, things were back in order with mask mandates indoors. There was a little controversy with a late-summer rock festival, but it resulted in only a few cases on the islands due to precautions.
As such, we are in the high 80%s for people with both vaccinations, last I checked, at least so far as adults are concerned. They are rolling out
boosters for the first wave and making preparations for children in families with risk factors, likely in the week.
So the other week the center/center-right leaning government, in opposition
to the recommendation of health authorities, announced that even though there were some cases that came over from Sweden (and some social spread), they
were not going to recommend masking, limiting social gatherings, etc. as
to "not interfere with Christmas nor Christmas shopping season." This was *widely* lambasted in the media and in local social media circles. Basically all retail shops (and teachers at school) continued to mask (and many regular people anyway), and due to outcry, they did say they they support a "soft" recommendation.
So sure, dealing with a mostly rural, island province with only one city
(home to 10,000 of the 30,000 total people) is much different from, say, Australia or the US, cultural factors and pragmatism [over political identitarianism] can play significant roles in polity and public health.
So in the case of the ¸land Islands, you can see a case where the population has been driving protective policy. Sure, the hard mandates from mainland Finland were often handed down, but often when we were already masking or having increased procedures in schools [side note: in the elementary schools
at least, only two grades at a time would be able to interact or share the
same part of the playground, handwashing procedures were enforced even when
not in any restriction, teachers masked, and the lunch schedules were tweaked so that the cleaning staff could give a full clean of the cafeteria between lunch periods]. Socially, everyone was at least aware of the current status, whether from the newspapers or ¸HS's website, because it was seen as
pertinent to the social and economic welfare of the community. And the only hiccup in the vaccine roll-out is that Group 1 [elderly and high risk] had a lot of lazy older folks who didn't bother signing up in a timely manner and they weren't going to open up to Group 2 [other risk factors] or General
until they hit some arbitrary % [and there were some weeks that the
vaccination center few old people came in a day].
I'm not going to say we are perfect, but most everyone understood what a massive outbreak would mean for both the industries here and the regional hospital and adjusted accordingly. Part may have been that summer 2020 was pretty "lean times" in regards to tourism income, so by the end of summer through to 2021 and into a great summer in 2021, everyone was pretty damn
chill about taking needed precautions. Hell, most of the touristy shit here
is very outdoors [camping, sailing, fishing], so it really came down to
people getting the shot as soon as they could and putting on masks and having hand sanitizers. I don't think there was a hard closure of anything in 2021, except for a couple elementary school classes having to test and quarantine
and like a week in maybe April where government offices and schools were operating remotely.
I don't know. I think there is too much politics wrapped up in all this for other countries. Australia has been a little nutty with extending police
powers [even if it hasn't *actually* lead to widespread abuse yet, it is disconcerting and part of a larger trend over there independent of COVID] and the US often has very ill-fitting public policy management, the rural south
and midwest often playing denialism or "muh freedoms" for basic measures that will help their community, because they want to present some form of
political identity, or the coastal urban/suburban often having ill-timed or extended lockdowns that seem (at least for a layman) not ideal.
And then there is my former country, Sweden... who decided to spend a year pretending it was nothing, putting out soft recommendations basically nobody followed, and having orders of magnitude higher social spread that the rest
of the Nordics [including denser Denmark, which has direct physical/supply communication with the rest of Europe]. I'm chalking that up to the
government running out of money, not admitting it, and pretending that ideas
of Swedish exceptionalism would placate everyone during a crisis [and for the most part it did, at the cost of lives].
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