No new COVID-19 infections were reported in Iceland during the past 24 hours. Prime Minister Katrín Jakobsdóttir has hailed the news as an important milestone in the fight against COVID-19.
A total of 193 tests
For the first time since February 29, no new COVID-19 infections were reported in Iceland during the past 24 hours: all of the 178 tests administered by the National University Hospital of Iceland’s Department of Microbiology came back negative, as did the 15 samples analysed by DeCODE Genetics.
According to data from the Ministry of Health and the Department of Civil Protection of Emergency Management, there are currently 237 active infections of COVID-19 in Iceland. Fourteen individuals are in the hospital, and five are in intensive care. Of the 1,789 confirmed infections, 1,542 individuals have recovered. A total of 45,286 samples have been taken. Ten have died.
An important milestone, says PM
Shortly after noon today, Prime Minister Katrín Jakobsdóttir responded to the news on Twitter, hailing it as an “important milestone in the fight against COVID.”
A false sense of security
In a daily press briefing this afternoon, Chief Epidemiologist Þórólfur Guðnason stated that it was important not to derive a false sense of security from the good news; relatively few tests were taken over the past 24 hours (193 compared to an average of 600 over the past days).
Þórólfur stated that he expected more cases to come up in the days to come, but that these numbers were in line with their forecasts. He added that since the actions taken in Iceland mean that relatively few Icelanders have been exposed to the virus, care will have to be taken to keep up the fight against the virus. “It means that we must be on our toes over the coming months to prevent a second, more extensive wave,” Þórólfur stated.
