Further Domestic Restrictions Announced

Minister of Health Svandís Svavarsdóttir has announced new domestic restrictions following a government meeting held moments ago.

The social gathering limit has been taken down from 500 people to 50, but can be up to 500 at events that provide rapid PCR testing. Restaurants and pubs will close at 22:00 instead of 23:00. Swimming pools may not operate at any greater than 75% of their maximum capacity.

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These restrictions are to go into effect at midnight tonight, and will remain in effect for at least the next three weeks. At that time, the government will then decide whether to loosen or tighten restrictions, but she is hopeful that there can be some relaxation of restrictions in time for the winter holidays.

She added that vaccine booster shots would also be rolling out, with the aim of reaching 160,000 people by year’s end.

The news comes in the wake of three consecutive days of record-breaking daily numbers, followed by 176 cases yesterday. Of those, 86 were outside quarantine at diagnosis.

179 are in border screening quarantine, with 2,459 in domestic quarantine and 1,585 in isolation. 20 are currently in hospital with the virus, with four in intensive care.

All this being the case, the domestic 14-day incidence per 100,000 inhabitants is 469.3, and the 14-day incidence at the border per 100,000 inhabitants is 27.5.

279,541 have been vaccinated against the coronavirus as of November 12th, comprising 89% of those aged 12 and older. 72,976 have also received booster shots.

As always, be sure to abide the domestic restrictions and border regulations.

More statistics and information can be found at covid.is or below.