Yuriy Otruba was preparing for his sixth scientific expedition to Antarctica when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, shutting borders, grounding flights and locking down countries he needed to travel through.
After repeated trips since 2009, the 34-year-old Ukrainian scientist feared that this year’s journey would be impossible due to strict lockdown measures imposed throughout the world to contain the virus.
The journey from Kyiv to the Akademik Vernadsky research base on Galindez Island in the Antarctic usually lasts a week, but it took Otruba and his team of 10 a number of false starts and more than four weeks, as they navigated several continents and a slew of pandemic restrictions to reach their destination.
Photo: EPA-EFE
“I felt like our chances were getting smaller and smaller and smaller,” said Otruba, a geophysicist who was leading a team for the first time this year.
“It’s a very beautiful, picturesque place,” he told reporters by telephone from the base, surrounded by snow-capped “mountains, the nature of Antarctica, its sanctity.”
“When you first get here, you are enchanted,” he said.
The obstacle for this year’s expedition was “very specific,” said Yevgen Dykyi, head of the National Antarctic Scientific Center. “It was called the coronavirus pandemic.”
“It was the longest and most difficult journey to Antarctica over the years,” Dykyi said.
Ukrainian scientists are stationed at the base for one-year stints, with new teams usually arriving in early spring.
Britain founded the Faraday station in 1947, and in 1996 gave it to Kyiv, which renamed the base after Ukrainian scientist Volodymyr Vernadsky. A regular itinerary brings new teams through Chile or Argentina, and by boat to the base in usually about a week.
On March 16, Ukraine’s 25th expedition of six scientists and five support staff set off for the continent. Yet at the first stop, in Istanbul, Turkey, it became clear that the 10 men and one woman would not make it to Colombia, then to Chile, with both countries announcing border closures.
They headed home to mandatory quarantine and to devise an alternative route, this time with the help of Ukrainian diplomats. Yet subsequent attempts also ran aground, with two flights canceled one after another.
In the end, the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs “did the impossible,” chartering flights and arranging permissions to enter the countries closed to foreigners, Dykyi said.
The team set off again at the end of March, traveling from Kiev to Qatar, Brazil and then Chile.
“A lot of hard work was done to get to Chile,” which was under lockdown when the team arrived, Otruba said.
The flight from Qatar to Brazil was packed, Otruba said, and some among the expedition were afraid of getting infected and having to “call the entire expedition into question.”
When the team eventually arrived at Punta Arenas on the southern tip of Chile, they isolated for two weeks in a hotel as a precaution, before finally boarding a boat loaded with food, fuel and research equipment to Antarctica.
After more than four weeks, the team arrived on April 21.
As a precaution, they brought an oxygen concentrator and medical oxygen cylinders in case a team member developed virus symptoms.
One of the station buildings can be used to self-isolate in the worst-case scenario, Otruba said.
With the pandemic left behind, the expedition, which includes a biologist, physicist and three meteorologists, can focus on their research — and the surroundings.
“We have seals here, crabeater seals, leopard seals... When we were sailing to the station, there were a lot of whales,” Otruba said.
“Few people have seen a penguin or a whale in the wild. It’s mesmerizing,” he said.
EVOLVING SITUATION: Of the latest cases, 23 percent were found to be asymptomatic, but the coronavirus strain in Da Nang is more contagious, authorities said A COVID-19 outbreak that began in the Vietnamese city of Da Nang more than a week ago has spread to at least four city factories with a combined workforce of about 3,700, state media reported yesterday. Four cases were found at the plants in different industrial parks in the central city that collectively employ 77,000 people, the Lao Dong newspaper said. Vietnam, praised widely for its decisive measures to combat the novel coronavirus since it first appeared in late January, is battling new clusters of infection having gone for more than three months without detecting any domestic transmissions. Authorities yesterday reported one new
‘COVIDIOTS’: Politicians condemned the protest that came amid surging infections in the country, while a marcher said government-induced fear weakened the body Loudly chanting their opposition to masks and vaccines, thousands of people on Saturday gathered in Berlin to protest against COVID-19 restrictions before being dispersed by police. Police put turnout at about 20,000 — well below the 500,000 organizers had announced as they urged a “day of freedom” from months of virus curbs. Despite Germany’s comparatively low toll, authorities are concerned at a rise in infections over the past few weeks and politicians took to social media to criticize the rally as irresponsible. “We are the second wave,” shouted the crowd, a mixture of hard left and right and conspiracy theorists, as they converged
The Australian government yesterday said that it plans to give Google and Facebook three months to negotiate with media businesses fair pay for news content. In releasing a draft of a mandatory code of conduct, Canberra aims to succeed where other nations have failed in making tech firms pay for news siphoned from commercial media companies. Australian Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said that Google and Facebook would be the first platforms targeted by the proposed legislation, but others could follow. “It’s about a fair go for Australian news media businesses, it’s about ensuring that we have increased competition, increased consumer protection and a sustainable
SURGE CONTINUES: India recorded its steepest spike of more than 57,000 new virus cases in 24 hours, as Vietnam went from no virus deaths to reporting three South Korean prosecutors yesterday arrested the elderly leader of a secretive religious sect as part of an investigation into allegations that the church hampered the government’s COVID-19 response after thousands of worshipers were infected in February and March. Prosecutors in the central city of Suwon have been questioning 88-year-old Lee Man-hee, chairman of the Shincheonji Church of Jesus, over charges that the church hid some members and underreported gatherings to avoid broader quarantines. The Suwon District Court granted prosecutors’ request to arrest Lee over concerns that he could temper with evidence. Lee and his church have steadfastly denied the accusations, saying they are
RSS