Double Screening At Border Likely To Be Made Compulsory

The current arrangement at the border, whereby passengers can choose to either quarantine for fourteen days or undergo a double screening which limits their quarantine to just five days, is valid until the 1st of December. According to Vísir, epidemiologist Þórólfur Guðnason has said that the risk lies in people who choose the fourteen day quarantine but have no intention of honouring it.

Þórólfur has not yet submitted any proposals to the Minister of Health to make the double screening mandatory, but it is understood that this is his intention.

“We are just working on making proposals and looking at the issue from many angles. A few groups are working on the recommendations. I will then make other proposals myself to the Minister of Health,” said Þórólfur.

Áslaug Arna Sigurbjörnsdottir, Minister of Justice, said that only three percent of those who come to Iceland choose to go to a 14-day quarantine instead of screening.

“It is important that we can look further ahead before 1 December regarding border measures,” she added. “There needs to be some predictability for next summer. We are looking at various options. The solutions we can see in the long term are that screening tests from abroad will be valid here within a certain time and people will then go back to screening, but it will be difficult for such a measure to come into place as early as the 1st of December.”

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