One Metre For Quarantine Assessment

Iceland’s team of epidemiologists are reducing the proximity that requires a contact to quarantine from two metres to one metre, Fréttablaðið reported this morning.

Until recently, individuals who have tested positive for coronavirus have been required to make a list of any other individual they have been closer than two metres to for fifteen minutes or more. This distance has now been reduced to one metre, meaning that quarantine and testing are only required if an individual has been closer than one metre to a confirmed infected person.

Jóhann Björn Skúlason emphasised that many factors play a role in whether an individual needs to be tested: “Proximity, repeated communication throughout the day, common areas of contact, staying in the same space for a long time and more. It is based on the recommendations of the epidemiologist and the best information at any given time, so the influencing factors can vary between cases.”

The “two-metre rule” for distancing in the general community was relaxed to one metre a month ago, reported on by the Grapevine here. The rule for reporting contact is therefore moving back in line with proximity restrictions in the wider community.

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