REYKJAVIK, Iceland – “We are open,” said Katrín Jakobsdóttir, Prime Minister of Iceland, in a recent interview.
Students are in classrooms. Party goers are packed into pubs and restaurants. Tourists are welcome. The country has not recorded any cases of domestic Covid-19 transmission for weeks and has managed to keep out dangerous new variants without closing the borders.
“When I think of this pandemic, it’s really what the Icelandic public took part in, how people really put their trust in the advice of the experts and the scientists,” Jakobsdóttir said. “They actually changed their behavior.”
Many other countries have imposed strict national closures to control the spread of the coronavirus, but Iceland has not used such extreme measures. Instead, it focused on a rigorous system of testing, detection, quarantine and isolation – and it trusted visitors and residents to comply.
As a remote volcanic island in the North Atlantic Ocean near the Arctic Circle, with a small population of about 350,000, Iceland has intrinsic advantages when it comes to managing the pandemic. But Jakobsdóttir also acknowledges the public health system, clear communication with the public and a general sense of solidarity for the success of the country.
“People actually respect the rules. They follow the rules,” she said.
Iceland’s procedure to enter the country is fairly simple: visitors and returning citizens must show negative PCR tests on arrival and then be tested again at the airport and again after five days in quarantine.
“Ninety-eight percent of the people show up for the second test,” Jakobsdóttir said. “And I think that’s a great result.”
Yet Iceland has recorded more than 6,000 confirmed cases of the coronavirus and 29 deaths. Thórólfur Guðnason, Iceland’s largest epidemiologist, said the focus now is on preventing another wave as the country begins to open its borders even further.
Government advisers have decided to allow people who have been fully vaccinated against Covid-19 or who have had previously documented coronavirus infections to skip quarantine. While the World Health Organization does not support the idea of vaccine passports enabling some to avoid quarantines, Guðnason said he has seen enough preliminary results from countries like Israel, which have vaccinated a large portion of the population, suggesting that they do not transmit the virus.
“You have to open the borders somehow. We tried to do it in a scientific way,” he said.
Brent Ozar, an information technology consultant from San Diego, moved to Iceland on a remote work visa, which offered a number of countries to attract foreign nationals. With the Icelandic visa for remote workers, foreigners can live and work in the country for up to six months, as long as they meet certain requirements.
“I ended up in Iceland because I had asthma, and when the coronavirus hit, we thought of all the places we could go in the world, and Iceland was just a magical place to be socially distant for a while, he said. “It feels like living in the countryside, maybe Michigan or Ohio, but with a real European flair.”
However, Ozar said he also feels much safer outside the location because the public takes the threat of the coronavirus seriously.
“I do not have to worry about the elevator in people who do not wear masks,” he said.
Solidarity has also enabled Iceland to keep its schools open, which other countries are struggling to do. In Iceland, children under the age of 16 have been in the classrooms since August.
“It was a top priority for us,” said Jakobsdóttir, who was elected at the age of 41 in 2017 and made her one of the world’s youngest leaders.
She said that when she decided to keep schools open, she was also considering the impact on women and their ability to work.
“I think if there is one lesson we can learn from this pandemic, it is the importance of women’s work around the world, in the health sector, in the welfare systems,” she said.
And despite Iceland’s success in managing the pandemic, Jakobsdóttir said she remains concerned about new coronavirus variants – as well as other dangers outside Covid-19.
More than 20,000 earthquakes have hit the Reykjanes peninsula in recent weeks, and scientists fear a volcano could erupt in the area. Jakobsdóttir had to move this interview by a few hours because she had to lead a disaster preparation meeting.
“When I talk about success, I do it in the knowledge that things can change, and that it can change pretty quickly,” she said. “Suppose we stay on our toes.”