Iceland Has Tested 13% of Its Entire Population for Coronavirus. Here’s What Health Authorities Found
Iceland’s testing capacity was helped by the presence of Reykjavik-based biopharmaceutical company deCODE Genetics, which early in the outbreak teamed up with health authorities to ramp up public testing.
Kari Stefansson, deCODE’s ebullient CEO, said the approach showed that “with the use of modern science, even an epidemic like this one can be contained.” In a random sample of 848 children under the age of 10 none of them tested positive, which guided Icelandic authorities’ decision to keep schools open for children under 16.
Altogether, 19,000 people were ordered into two-week quarantine. Everyone else carried on with a semblance of normality. Primary schools remained open, and some cafes and restaurants kept operating, following social distancing rules: no more than 20 people gathered at once and everyone 2 meters apart.
That means a bleak economic outlook for a country that depends on tourism. On Road Number One, the “Ring Road” looping through Iceland’s coastal towns and villages, the Associated Press passed empty vista points and few cars.
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