Iceland Records No New Cases of Coronavirus for the First Time
Iceland Records No New Cases of Coronavirus for the First Time
(Bloomberg) -- 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.
“Nobody was diagnosed with Covid-19 in the last 24 hours,” Chief Epidemiologist Thorolfur Gudnason said at a daily briefing in Reykjavik. But “we need to be on our toes in the next months to prevent a new or larger epidemic.”
Iceland is one of the countries that has carried out the most intensive testing program, with more than 43,000 residents tested by April 21. That’s the equivalent of 12% of the population. In contrast, New York, which has tested more aggressively than any other U.S. state, had tested in excess of 640,000, or just over 3% of its population, by then.
Iceland has banned gatherings of more than 20 people and has shuttered schools, but plans to relax those measures on May 4.
“If we continue to have low numbers of infections, there might be a premise for easing restrictions faster than we anticipated,” Gudnason said.
The north Atlantic island has 1,789 confirmed cases and 10 deaths, according to the latest data. The peak in the number of new infections happened on March 24.
Despite those relatively low numbers, the economy has taken a beating as a result of the global drop in travel. Tourism is Iceland’s main export, and latest estimates point to a contraction of 55% in the number of visitors last month.
With about a quarter of the country’s labor force now on unemployment benefit, the government and the central bank have launched unprecedented measures to cushion the economic blow.
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