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This story will be updated throughout the day. Photo of Mihaela Cafuta walking along shore, where a community hike is planned this evening, by Romano Juric.
With all but two “county” regions of Norway now reporting at least 100 confirmed cases of coronavirus – and the rapid number of those requiring hospitalization a foremost concern – Svalbard remains free of known cases as of midday Monday. In general the fewest cases are in northern mainland areas, with the 140 combined cases in Troms and Finnmark the third-lowest nationally.
While numerous questions are being expressed about the government’s preliminary plan to provide seven million kroner in emergency aid for “exempt” Longyearbyen residents who’ve been laid off – along with many complaints about the 20-day benefit limit compared to the many months of help that Norwegian and EU/EEA citizens here are eligible for – local leaders are still awaiting the final plan and specifics (press release from city noting development of application process is underway).
“This money is distributed according to fixed criteria,” Longyearbyen Mayor Arild Olsen wrote in an online interview Sunday. “There is, as I have seen, no room for discretionary assessments. It will also be (the local council) who will administrer the scheme. Exactly how we rig the system it is not entirely clear, but as mention: fixed criteria.”
I'm a professional transient living on a tiny Norwegian island next door to the North Pole, where once a week (or thereabouts) I pollute our extreme and pristine environment with paper fishwrappers decorated with seemingly random letters that would cause a thousand monkeys with a thousand typewriters to die of humiliation.
Such is the wisdom one acquires after more than 25 years in the world's second-least-respected occupation, much of it roaming the seven continents in search of jazz, unrecognizable street food and escorts I f****d with by insisting they give me the platonic tours of their cities promised in their ads.
But it turns out this tiny group of islands known as Svalbard is my True Love and, generous contributions from you willing, I'll keep littering until they dig my body out when my climate-change-deformed apartment collapses or they exile my penniless ass because I'm not even worthy of washing your dirty dishes.
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