Rumors Of People Deliberately Infecting Themselves With COVID-19

According to radio station Bylgjan’s program Bitið, there have been rumors about people who intentionally try to infect themselves with coronavirus, reports Vísir. Chief epidemologist Þórólfur Guðnason warns people not to do so, since it’s impossible to know who gets hospitalized due to the virus.

Bitið interviewed Þórólfur about the issue this morning. According to the radio program, people deliberately visit their COVID-19 infected friends in hopes of getting the virus themselves. In doing so they hope to gain immunity to the virus and its variants.

Þórólfur points out that it is impossible to know who will suffer greatly from the virus, and thus advises people to stay away from infected patients. He mentions two patients that were hospitalized before the weekend and needed to use ventilators, even though neither of them had any underlying illnesses. One of them was vaccinated, the other one wasn’t. “You never know what the outcome will be”, he says.

Ongoing restrictions aren’t burdensome

The hosts of Bitið also asked Þórólfur whether he thinks that the disease control rules are too strict in Iceland. They mentioned other countries, such as Denmark and the UK, where the rules have been loosened considerably.

According to Þórólfur, the Brits aren’t a good role model when it comes to relaxing the rules. He points out that when they reduced sampling in the UK, the infection rate decreased, but at the same time there has been a large increase in the number of hospital admissions and deaths due to the virus.

Þórólfur thinks that the ongoing restrictions in Iceland aren’t particularly burdensome. He says that if the rules were further relaxed, there would be a risk of increased infections and hospital admissions. In other words, the story from last summer would probably be repeated.

You can now take walking tours of Reykjavík with Grapevine crewmembers Valur, Pollý and Bjartmar as your guides. Click here for more details.