Two Active Cases at KEF Airport

Since Iceland began offering coronavirus testing at ports of entry on Monday, 2,400 arriving passengers have been tested at Keflavík International Airport. Six of those have tested positive for the virus. Only two of them, however, were found to be contagious, since the other four turned out to have antibodies to the virus. The two who are contagious are in isolation.

As a result of the two active cases at the airport, 20 people had to be quarantined.

All of the above was revealed at a press conference yesterday afternoon.

Testing was reported to have gone well, but problems were encountered when sending test results by SMS to some of the passengers. Using the transmission tracing app Rakning C-19 was said to be more effective a way to receive the results, which most of the time should be available within 12 hours of testing.

On Wednesday, 540 passengers were tested at the airport, one of whom tested positive.

Passengers arriving by the ferry Norræna to Seyðisfjörður, the East Fjords, have been tested as well, but none of them has tested positive so far. It can take 24 hours for them to receive test results, since the samples need to be sent to Reykjavík for analysis.

At the press conference, Director of Health Alma Möller reiterated that the nurses’ strike, planned to begin Monday if no agreement is reached, remains a cause for concern. She stated that should the strike go ahead as planned, health authorities will request exemptions from it for the testing process at the airport.

Páll Þórhallsson, office manager at the Prime Ministry, stated that starting Monday, inner border control of the Schengen area would cease.

For the latest COVID-19 figures, updated daily at 1 pm, go to covid.is.