COVID Roundup: Hospitals Worried About Coming Weeks, Daily Numbers

Some 10% of hospital staff are off duty due to coronavirus infections or other illnesses, Vísir reports.

We have been having some awful weather here as of late, so we’re specially grateful for our comfy traditional lopapeysa sweaters, the beautiful woolen garments which have been keeping Icelanders warm for generations. They’re available in our shop, and ours are hand-knitted right here in Iceland.

Gunnar Ágúst Beinteinsson, the director of human resources at Landspítali hospital, said that all available staff are on duty now, some of them working overtime and picking up extra shifts.

“There is just a lot of staff who are sick but we expected that to be the case,” he told reporters. “We’re just hoping that there won’t be much more [sick]. I think the next two weeks will be very difficult.”

The news comes in the wake of recent announcements from Minister of Health Willum Þór Þorsson that he will probably lift all domestic restrictions, as well as all border restrictions, by the end of the month at the latest.

In terms of daily numbers, there were 2,317 recorded domestic cases of the coronavirus in Iceland yesterday, with an additional 92 reported cases at the border. 182 are in border screening quarantine, with 11,880 in isolation. There are currently 52 people in hospital with the coronavirus and four in intensive care.

288,150 people aged five and older have been fully vaccinated against the coronavirus as of February 16th, comprising 81% of this age group, or 78% of the total population. 201,507 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.