Chief epidemiologist Þórólfur Guðnason has stated he had no hope that an agreement would be reached between Pfizer and the Icelandic government, Vísir reports.
Þórólfur appeared on radio station FM957 this morning saying that he believed it to be unlikely that Iceland would be used as a testing ground for the vaccine.
The epidemiologist went on to say that the result is disappointing for many Icelanders who hoped the vaccine would be arriving really soon.
“Of course, these were certain disappointments, I do not deny it,” he said. “We had already made certain arguments that it was necessary to study certain things that we could have done well. But Pfizer looked at it a little differently.”
“I did not have any hope that we would reach an agreement.”
When asked if he had been optimistic about the meeting, Þórólfur said “No, no, I did not have any hope that we would reach an agreement. I firmly hoped that we would discuss the issues, see what they said, and that could be the case anyway. There was nothing that surprised me like that.”
Iceland is a victim of its own success.
Kári Stefánsson, founder and CEO of deCODE Genetics, agreed with Þórólfur on Kastljós that the study will probably not take place anymore due to Iceland having too few COVID-19 cases.
Photo credit – Magnús Andersen
When speaking with RÚV, Kári told the news agency that “At the meeting, we discussed all sorts of possibilities for gaining new knowledge by doing such an experiment in Iceland. The result was that we have too few cases for that to be possible.”
When asked if this was the final answer, Kári responded, “In my ears, this sounded like a final answer and a final conclusion.”
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