We ‘Hope This Disease Has Not Spread Again’
From the coronavirus testing station in Reykjavík. mbl.is/Eggert Jóhannesson
After experiencing more than six weeks of next to no new confirmed domestic COVID-19 cases outside quarantine (one such was confirmed February 1 – the only one since January 20), it came as quite a shock in Iceland last weekend when two people, who were not in quarantine, tested positive for the disease. Both were found to be infected with the British variant of the virus, which is more infectious than most.
On Monday, two more domestic cases outside quarantine were confirmed. They, too, are of the British variant, Chief Epidemiologist Þórólfur Guðnason confirmed this morning, mbl.is reports.
No new domestic cases were confirmed yesterday, mbl.is reports.
Kári Stefánsson, CEO of deCode Genetics. Photo/Kristinn Magnússon
The first two domestic cases were traced to a passenger who arrived in the country February 26. Subsequently, people at an outpatient clinic of Landspítali National University Hospital were placed in quarantine, as well as about ten people who attended a concert at Harpa Concert Hall on Friday.
One of the people who tested positive Monday works nights as a grocery stocker for Hagkaup in Garðabær. The store announced this on Facebook yesterday. The individual worked early Saturday and Sunday mornings. The store’s contact surfaces were disinfected and coworkers tested and placed in quarantine.
Mbl.is reported yesterday that a pizza delivery person for the pizza place Pizzan, on the street Núpalind in Kópavogur, had tested positive for the virus over the weekend. As a result, all ten employees have been placed in quarantine.
This was confirmed by Hákon Atli Bjarkarson, managing director of Pizzan. The infected delivery person came to work on Saturday, but only delivered few pizzas. Hákon states that the pizza place has been disinfected and will be staffed with employees from other Pizzan shops.
Mbl.is reports that 28 persons who visited World Class on Friday were placed in quarantine, after an individual who tested positive yesterday was found to have trained at World Class around noon on Friday.
Last night, mbl.is reported that the majority of deCode Genetics’ employees had been tested for the virus Monday morning, after which they were sent home. The decision to test them was made after it became clear that one of the employees lives with a person who tested positive over the weekend. That employee tested negative. According to CEO Kári Stefánsson, the employees will be tested again today.
“We cross our fingers and hope this disease has not spread again,” he tells mbl.is .
UPDATE at 11:50 am: The story has been corrected. It previously quoted Morgunblaðið , saying that three new cases had been confirmed yesterday. The cases that appeared positive yesterday were not domestic ones. Two people tested postivive at the border, and a third person at the border turned out to have antibodies.
