All restrictions due to epidemics are expiring in this country. This will take effect at midnight (June 26),  it actually means that it will take effect at midnight tonight.

But let us continue to be careful, says the Minister of Health, as so often before.

As many people as possible can come together and want to, no mask obligation is in force anymore and the entertainment life is open until half past four. Normal life is therefore starting again, but at the border, screening and disease control measures are still in place.

Minister of Health: “It’s a big day, I just feel like I have a bit of a heartbeat, in the fight with Covid-19.”

Iceland is the first country in the Nordic countries to lift all domestic restrictions. Measures will continue to be taken at the border until after the summer, but not domestically, among other things, as the few infections that have been diagnosed recently have not caused illness.

Þórólfur Guðnason, epidemiologist: “I just feel good. I want to interpret this as a milestone victory. This is not over, this is not a final victory. We may have a setback. I do not want to be a boring guy at the party, but we know what we need to do. We need to continue this individual disease control and take good care of ourselves. ”

Among the things that have not yet become normal are, for example, the epidemiologist’s recommendation not to go abroad unvaccinated.

“We are here today to announce a major lifting of domestic measures,” said Prime Minister Katrín Jakobsdóttir. It would be strange to be announcing relaxations and not tightening.

The changes include: no more mandatory masks, proximity and mass restrictions are gone. “In fact, we are restoring the society we are used to living in and which we have longed for, ever since the authority of the Epidemiology Act to restrict gatherings was activated due to a pandemic just over a year ago, on March 16, 2020,” says the Minister of Health. The decision to lift all meeting restrictions is in accordance with the recommendations of the epidemiologist.

“Our plans for the progress of the vaccination have been fully implemented,” said Katrín, thanking the people of the country for embarking on the project with the government.

Everything according to plan

Now we finally see the end of a period of various disease control restrictions that began on March 15, 2020 with the first ban on meetings in the history of the republic. The memos from the epidemiologist are now 60.

More than a week has passed since the last infection of the coronary virus was diagnosed in Iceland, and about 87% of vaccinated people have been protected with at least one injection of vaccine.

The Ministry of Health announced in April that in the second half of June all domestic restrictions would be lifted, as the proportion of vaccinated people would be at least 75%. That limit has now been well exceeded, but the general relief will fall within the time limit in question, as it is still June.

Source: visir.is