Restaurants had been asked to arrange their tables to keep groups two metres apart, but some diners, I noticed, had pushed the tables closer together. Icelanders, too, are big travellers: in 2018, more than eighty per cent of them vacationed abroad. Today, Iceland is still far from anywhere. But, when I asked Stefánsson about the Icelandic government’s response to COVID-19, he had only kind words. “The numbers in the beginning were terrible,” Möller said. She hunched her shoulders together: “Normally, we are so crowded you cannot walk.”, Having effectively eliminated the virus—the week I was there, only one new case was confirmed—Iceland now finds itself in a position at once enviable and awkward. Anyone who’d spent more than fifteen minutes near the man in the days before he’d experienced his first symptoms was considered potentially infected. We deal with avalanches, earthquakes, eruptions, and so on.” Among the slides she showed me about the country’s experience with COVID was one labelled “Success?”, Iceland was one of the last (more or less) habitable places on earth to be settled by humans, sometime toward the end of the ninth century. The list of rules ran four single-spaced pages and included provisos on how to use—or, really, not use—public rest rooms. Even as I was struggling to abide by the rules of my modified quarantine, longingly eying the coffee bars and the public rest rooms, Icelandic authorities were considering how to reopen the border. Iceland’s 648 confirmed cases of coronavirus seem to indicate that our country now has one of the highest infection rates per capita in the world. “And that was really amazing. They came up with the plan, and they just instituted it. Spectacular geological attractions are wide open to tourists. By sequencing the virus from every person infected, researchers at deCODE could also make inferences about how it had spread. Pálmason’s supervisor told him he was going to lead that team. By the time I arrived, the schools had reopened, the limit on gatherings had been raised to fifty, and people were again getting their hair cut. But researchers at deCODE found that, while attention had been focussed on Italy, the virus had been quietly slipping into the country from several other nations, including Britain. And I told them we should offer to screen the general population in Iceland.”. Some neighboring islands are accepting evacuees only if they have taken a COVID-19 vaccine. From July 1, when Iceland opens up to countries beyond Europe's Schengen Zone, visitors will have to pay $114 for this process. Will be used in accordance with our Privacy Policy. Iceland has provided a textbook example of how to get out ahead of a looming pandemic: per capita, it has tested more people for coronavirus than any other country on earth and it … The in-flight magazine, which apparently hadn’t been replaced for several months, was filled with pictures of vacationers in the snow. (It seems likely that the women were seized by the Vikings and brought along by force.). I knew from early February that the U.S. would be in great trouble.” Möller is an intensive-care physician by training; in 1990, she became the first woman to serve as a helicopter doctor with Iceland’s Coast Guard. “I’m not a news guy,” he told me. "It was a bit shocking because then I knew I had to be home for at least two weeks, but I ended up being at home for 23 days because you have to be at home without symptoms for seven days before they let you out.". I went to speak to him at his gallery, i8, which was closed to the public at the time. To find people who had been exposed, team members scanned airplane manifests and security-camera footage. All rights reserved. But, when disease did slip in, the effects on a population that lacked immunity could be devastating. Iceland, which has three hundred and sixty-five thousand residents—about half the population of Denver—is a famously tight-knit country. . (“Near” was defined as within a radius of two metres, or just over six feet.) About forty per cent of Iceland’s export revenue comes from tourism. As of 11 April 2021, the total number of cases registered was 6,267, of which 6,140 had recovered and 29 deaths had occurred. Students are in classrooms. “We have no tourists and we are a tourist shop,” one of them said, when I asked about business. “So the decision was made—all of them go into quarantine.” If you were returning to Iceland from overseas, you also got a call: put yourself in quarantine. It's a tantalizing prospect. Fact-checker: The number of COVID-19 cases in your local area. Iceland’s borders are open to residents of the Schengen Area, EEA, EFTA, and EU. The journalist should not explore the site, even with a guide, but only visit the space designated for the interview.”). The pool limits occupancy to three hundred and fifty people at a time. See more stories on … Before entering Iceland, travelers must wear a mask on flights and within the arrival halls of Keflavik Airport. Iceland Has Very Good News About Coronavirus Immunity Some 91% of Icelanders who recovered from Covid produced detectable antibodies. I had initially planned to go to Iceland in March, for a story unconnected to the coronavirus. 9 Apr Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it remains unclear how many cruise ships will arrive in Iceland this summer. Iceland has achieved something no other country has: tested 10% of its population for coronavirus, a figure far higher than anywhere else in the world.. … Share page. I won’t be shopping in Iceland! Iceland’s first COVID casualty was, perhaps not surprisingly, a vacationer. Was I allowed into the duty-free store? They say the tiny Nordic island country of 360,000 people has not done enough to suppress new cases of Covid-19, the disease caused by the virus. (Icelandair may require a government bailout; well before the virus hit, it was losing money.). Who would perform the screening, and how this would all work, was left unspecified. Attractions such as the Blue Lagoon geothermal spa have been closed since March, which has lost it the revenue from 2,500-3,000 paying visitors on average per day. He was driving to his office one morning when he heard on the radio an estimate of the virus’s fatality rate. Anyone visiting Iceland right now could be forgiven for thinking they've arrived in a parallel universe where the coronavirus never happened. "We have been able to work on this in an informed manner rather than poking in the dark and I insist that what has happened in the United States, what has happened in Great Britain, is that, because of lack of screening or lack of an attempt to understand what is really going on, it has been really difficult to contain the infection.". The latest official figures show the unemployment rate in Iceland doubled from January to April to 7% and has presumably been climbing ever since. “In this gathering, people were hugging, and eating from the same trays,” Pálmason told me. PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — The Rhode Island Department of Health reported almost 500 new confirmed cases of the coronavirus on Wednesday and two more virus-related fatalities. Iceland's bars and restaurants are crowded. "We were able to hold on for a little while, but it was getting to that point where it wasn't going to be that much longer that we could hold on for with no revenue," he says. Scientists in Iceland found 40 mutations of the coronavirus among people with the deadly bug in the country -- and that seven infections came from people who … (Primary schools and day-care centers remained open, on a limited schedule.) The number of people the tracing team was tracking down, meanwhile, was rising even more quickly. "It feels like the end of the world" "It is like purgatory in there," said one Tesco employee, who wished to remain anonymous. maintaining social distancing as the U.S. reopens, What to read, watch, cook, and listen to under quarantine, Under a White Sky: The Nature of the Future. Meanwhile, deCODE was also sequencing the virus from every Icelander whose test had come back positive. VICTORIA -- British Columbia health officials identified 64 new cases of COVID-19 in the Vancouver Island region Wednesday. One was Börkur Arnarson, an art dealer. This is due to a massive undertaking by Kári Stefánsson, MD, Dr. Europe News -REYKJAVIK (AFP) - Iceland on Friday (Feb 28) confirmed the new coronavirus had reached the subarctic island after a man in his forties, who had recently returned from a … The country didn’t just manage to flatten the curve; it virtually eliminated it. “We think they don’t add much and they can give a false sense of security,” she said. Reynisson, Guðnason, and Möller worked together out of an improvised COVID command center in the offices of the Icelandic Coast Guard. (“The director of the public entity must be informed and assent to the interview even if they are not the interviewee. The man, whose name was not released, was Australian. The country hadn’t just managed to flatten the curve; it had, it seemed, virtually eliminated it. Iceland has reached a landmark in its fight against Covid-19, with no new confirmed cases reported on Friday, the first time this has happened since the start of the global pandemic. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast. “They predicted that 3.4 per cent of those who were infected would die,” Stefánsson recalled. One day, I took a walk down Laugavegur, the city’s equivalent of Fifth Avenue. Then she was tested positive. That evening, the holy trinity had put on bathrobes to attempt another miraculous rescue. I did some e-mailing and phoning around. close. Arnarson spent nearly six weeks on his own; with his family in isolation, he couldn’t go home once he’d recovered. After the show ended, he’d gone to a crowded party where finger food was served. "It's devastating for the tourism industry for sure but as an overall effect, the balance of trade in Iceland has not been hit that severely and opening the borders will also cause currency to flow out of the country with Icelanders traveling abroad," says Professor Tinna Ásgeirsdóttir of the University of Iceland. It won’t save the tourism sector in Iceland this year. “Also, masks work for some time, and then they get wet, and they don’t work anymore.”, Möller was careful not to suggest that Iceland had beaten the virus. Iceland Volcano: Third fissure opens up. COVID-19 Information – ICELAND. “We think we are taking a really cautious step, by saying we are going to start this experiment, where people can choose between a test or quarantine,” she said. When new cases started to be diagnosed in a great rush, the backup team, along with doctors whose offices had been shut by the pandemic, counselled people over the phone. Thanks to a rigorous regime of tracking and tracing, COVID-19 has more or less been eliminated in Iceland, giving the country confidence to reopen its borders on June 15. It involves being ushered into a cubicle where two people dressed in full medical protective gear use long plastic sticks to prod much deeper than you might expect to take a sample. Across from where I was staying, the building that once housed Iceland’s state telephone company was being converted into a hotel. News in English from Iceland ... Two Cruise Lines Plan to Sail Around Iceland. 2: “Even those being interviewed should maintain 2 metres distance from the journalist in quarantine as much as possible.”) As soon as I got into his Porsche, he asked me where I was from. The Directorate of Health has confirmed the first coronavirus case in Iceland, Vísir reports. The figure is so low that it raised some doubts. But no visitors means empty hotels, unsold trolls, and thousands upon thousands of lost jobs. (In Europe, handball is a team sport that’s sort of a cross between basketball and soccer.). The government allows testing for anyone who wants it. During that time, along with the rest of Iceland, he watched the trio daily at 2 P.M. “The three of them—the policeman, the doctor, and the epidemiologist—they’re such heroes,” Arnarson said. One of the crew members told me that he and almost all of his colleagues, including the pilots, had been given three months’ notice; they were working only occasional flights. Iceland offers free Covid-19 tests as tourism restarts 17 June 2020 Iceland is now welcoming tourists from all EU and Schengen countries, and the UK, as the country reopens from the Covid-19 shutdown. It's a very different situation.". There's no complacency though. When we landed at Keflavík, Iceland’s international airport, I faced my first crisis of conscience. Analysis Interpretation of the news based on evidence, including data, as well as anticipating how events might unfold based on past events A coronavirus test for anyone? Individuals located in Iceland are asked to report symptoms (cough, fever, and muscle aches) to 1700 (+354 544-4113 for foreign numbers). His clothes continued on to the town of Eyrarbakki, on the island’s southern coast, sparking an outbreak that, by 1709, had killed about a quarter of the country. Ad Choices. After only six weeks of lockdown due to the coronavirus, Iceland will start to welcome visitors on June 15. They could show a certificate confirming a recent negative COVID-19 test, be screened for the virus, or go into quarantine. DeCODE is now owned by an American biotech company, Amgen; its offices are in a sleek, metal-clad building not far from Reykjavík’s municipal airport. The job entailed such tasks as being lowered in a harness onto fishing boats in the North Atlantic to treat sick crew members. “With our detective techniques to find people, we began to gather some information from the case,” Pálmason told me. People sit in a restaurant in Reykjavik. In Massachusetts, an executive order issued by the governor requires that masks be worn by anyone entering a store, taking a cab, or using public transit, and violators can be fined up to three hundred dollars. Tourism only accounted for 8% of GDP in 2019 and economists warn that the border opening won't necessarily help the wider economy. For people arriving from countries still under lockdown, the sheer normality of eating lunch in a bustling Reykjavik cafe is almost as thrilling as peering over the thundering abyss of Iceland's mighty Gullfoss waterfall. Iceland has 364,000 inhabitants. Obviously, the fewer people who enter the country, the less likely a new outbreak. Which international destinations are reopening to tourists? It was so comforting, knowing that they were doing this.” He was given a number to call in case of an emergency: “I don’t think they were getting many calls, because they were so proactive.” While he was in isolation, his wife and his daughter, who’d originally tested negative for the virus, came down with it. CORONAVIRUS may be a lot less deadly than was first thought as large-scale screening in Iceland suggested around half of those infected have had the disease without even realising. “We were following the news from China very closely,” she said. The man, the team learned, had been back in Iceland for several days before he’d been diagnosed. Stefánsson is a frequent critic of the Icelandic government. But it was nearly 10 p.m., and Icelandair had cancelled the flight’s meal service. The answer came back: no. The scene was completely ordinary, which is to say now exotic—just people meeting up with friends for dinner. Live: Follow all the latest updates from the UK and around the world. And I was struck by how New Yorkers were so confident. The first thing she said when I sat down was “I’m so sorry. Published 8 September 2020. comments Comments. “You know, everybody knows everyone in Iceland,” she said. Swimmers at Laugardalslaug, a public pool in Reykjavík, which reopened on May 18th, after an eight-week closure. Suppose somebody tested positive? Though I’d been in Iceland for only two days, I recognized them. And it was very clear from the beginning that this was something that should be led by experts—by scientific and medical experts.” She went on, “And the experts, they were very humble. “But I knew what was going on here in Iceland, and I knew what was going on in Europe. Coronavirus: England duo Greenwood and Foden dropped for breaking COVID-19 rules in Iceland "They have to travel back to England separately. 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