While Minister of Health Willum Þór Þórsson announced yesterday that the current pandemic restrictions would be extended another three weeks, a memo sent to him from Chief of Medicine Alma Möller and chief epidemiologist Þórólfur Guðnason, dated on Monday, specifically recommended making changes.
“With unchanged development, it is heading for a complete state of emergency in the country’s health system as well as in a variety of domestic activities, both due to the COVID-19 disease itself and its consequent effects,” the memo concludes in part. “The government therefore needs to seriously consider whether it is not time for tougher social measures to be taken to better control the pandemic while continuing to build up the health care system.”
That said, Willum told reporters yesterday that the next few days will be critical, indicating that it is very possible the government could tighten pandemic restrictions before these three weeks are over. In fact, at a press conference held today, Þórólfur said a new memo on tightening domestic restrictions can be expected before the weekend.
Where daily figures are concerned, there were 1,135 recorded domestic cases of the coronavirus in Iceland yesterday, plus an additional 60 at the border.
770 are in border screening quarantine, with 10,063 in domestic quarantine and 10,033 in isolation. There are currently 47 people in hospital and seven in intensive care.
284,827 people aged 12 and older have been fully vaccinated against the coronavirus as of January 11th, comprising 91% of this age group. 167,726 have also received booster shots.
Getting a booster shot is a very straightforward process, with no barcode required. More information on that can be found here. For your first and second vaccination, you can sign up here.
As always, be sure to abide the domestic restrictions and border regulations.
More information can be found at covid.is/data and, in Icelandic, below. Bear in mind that it may take some time for daily figures to be updated in languages other than Icelandic.
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