COVID Roundup: Isolation Time Reduces After The Weekend, Daily Numbers

In an interview on radio show Bítið this morning, Minister of Health Willum Þór Þorsson confirmed that isolation times for those who test positive for the coronavirus will be reduced from seven days to five. This policy is to begin after the weekend.

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Where other pandemic restrictions are concerned, he told RÚV that he was hopeful to be able to lift those sooner than March 14th. While reporters pointed out that Iceland has been slower to alleviate pandemic restrictions than other Nordic countries, Willum replied, “First of all, I want to say that it would be dangerous if one wanted to get into some kind of competition about this, and that should never be used as an independent goal.” He pointed out that the coronavirus is still widespread in Iceland, and nursing homes in particular are still vulnerable, so any further relaxations will need to be done carefully.

Where daily numbers are concerned, there were 1,214 recorded domestic cases of the coronavirus in Iceland yesterday, 39% of whom were in quarantine at diagnosis. There were an additional 39 reported cases at the border.

172 are in border screening quarantine, with 7,388 in quarantine and 10,373 in isolation. There are currently 21 people in hospital with the coronavirus and three in intensive care.

282,084 people aged five and older have been fully vaccinated against the coronavirus as of February 2nd, comprising 79% of this age group, or 76% of the total population. 198,242 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.