Daily Number of New COVID-19 Cases in Iceland on the Rise

A total of 96 new cases of COVID-19 were confirmed in Iceland yesterday, mbl.is reports. Forty-one of the people diagnosed were in quarantine.

Five people tested positive for COVID-19 at the border. Four of those were active cases.

At present, the 14-day incidence rate in Iceland per 100,000 inhabitants stands at 278.9.

Chief Epidemiologist Þórólfur Guðnason states that the number of cases is growing exponentially domestically, as is the case elsewhere in Europe. He stresses that stricter measures must be enacted to prevent an emergency situation at Landspítali National University Hospital. Those, he notes, along with individual disease prevention measures, are the only effective thing against the pandemic.

“So far, we have not succeeded in limiting the spread of the virus with individual disease prevention measures alone,” he states. “We have always needed restrictions in society to limit the infections.”

“I sense that the situation is difficult at Landspítali, and [hospital officials] have said so publicly,” Þórólfur tells mbl.is. “Various procedures are being cancelled and postponed, and medical units are being reorganized, creating problems for all sorts of operations the hospital must perform, which hurts all sorts of patient groups, not just COVID [patients].”

“This is just what we’re faced with,” he continues, “and this is what we talked about in the summer; this is what is developing, and my question is: When are people going to learn from experience? When are they going to see the situation for what it is?”