COVID Roundup: Record-Breaking Cases; Chief Epidemiologist Urges Caution

There were 3,349 cases of the coronavirus diagnosed in Iceland yesterday–a new and unfortunate record for a single day.

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This news comes in the wake of yesterday’s announcement that all domestic and border restrictions will be lifted on midnight Friday. Chief epidemiologist Þórólfur Guðnason told RÚV that the pandemic is far from over, and has strongly encouraged people to continue to practice personal responsibility.

“We have the recommendation that people who test positive stay home for five days before rejoining public life,” he said. “Especially if they have symptoms. The same principles apply.”

While adding that people should also exercise personal precautions to prevent the spread of infection, especially amongst those especially vulnerable to the virus, he is hopeful that herd immunity will happen faster now that all restrictions have been lifted.

“I think we’re on the right track with this wave and I hope that will continue to be the case against other variants that may arise,” he said. “But you can’t be sure. So I welcome this victory and that this will hopefully be the final victory, but we’ll just have to see.”

In terms of other daily numbers, there were an additional 167 reported cases at the border. 238 are in border screening quarantine, with 12,944 in isolation. There are currently 54 people in hospital with the coronavirus and two in intensive care.

289,020 people aged five and older have been fully vaccinated against the coronavirus as of February 23th, comprising 81% of this age group, or 78% of the total population. 202,818 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 by contacting your area health clinic. For your first and second vaccination, you can sign up here.

As always, be sure to abide the domestic restrictions and border regulations–at least, while they last.

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.