After almost two years of restrictions aimed at curbing the transmission of COVID-19, the Icelandic Government finally announced on Wednesday that all restrictions, including all testing and restrictions at the borders, will be lifted at midnight on Friday, February 25th.
The Minister for Healthcare, Willum Thor Thorsson, said that with the current level of infections, continued restrictions are useless. “Restrictions do not have any effect at this point in time,” he said. The Health Ministry also said the way to end the pandemic is herd immunity through infections, and it wants “as many people as possible” to be infected to achieve “widespread societal resistance”. Vaccines will not provide the necessary immunity.
Over the past weeks and months, mask mandates and strict limitations on gatherings have been in place, while infections have surged and the restrictions seem to have had no effect on transmission.
As much as 81% of the population above the age of four has been vaccinated at least twice. Official figures now show a higher infection rate among double-vaccinated adults and children than among the unvaccinated, and the boosters clearly do little to curb infections, as the infection rate for the triple vaccinated is now around 70% of that for the unvaccinated, and approaching it slowly but surely.
Almost a third of the population has tested positive and based on a recent local seroprevalence study it may be estimated that the actual proportion of the population that has been infected is close to two thirds.
The use of PCR tests for the general population has been discontinued and the crowd waiting outside the main testing centre in Reykjavik dispersed just after the Government made its announcement on Wednesday.
Most of the people in the street interviewed by the media seemed happy to get rid of the restrictions. The director of the Icelandic national hospital was worried though, and said this was too early.
Despite the decision made this week, the Icelandic Prime Minister said the possibility of new restrictions later on could not be ruled out, for example in the case of a new variant emerging. After the Healthcare Minister‘s announcement regarding the lack of effectiveness of the restrictions, it might be expected that a decision to reimpose them would have to rest on a stronger foundation than before.
Thorsteinn Siglaugsson is an economist who lives in Iceland. Find him on his blog.
Stop Press: Poland is also lifting all restrictions from March 1st, except the mask mandate, oddly.
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Getting rid of a load of s..t?
He can afford to, he’s full of it!
Anyone enquired as to Vaxx status?
Wars and Storms
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I would applaud except for the scumminess of these self appointed rulers of our lives.
Do they want as many people as possible to catch covid or is it that seeing how infections (by their positive test definition) are out of control they are saying that to make it look as if they are controlling what is happening?
I will only properly celebrate the day all these “policy makers” are rounded up and held responsible for their hubris, their arrogance and all the damage they have done.
Scum.
He wants the young and healthy infected because almost none of them will get ill. And if he has stocks of ivermectin in Iceland, he can treat the few that get sick perfectly happily.
Two years have gone by to round them up. Are we really still waiting for ‘the lawyers’ to turn up and drag the likes of Michie and Ferguson off to the Nuremberg trials 2?
Are Ukrainian refugees now queuing up at the test centres in the hope of getting a ‘negative test result’ for Covid’ so they can enter the EU? Only a day or two for the results to come through… or do they have to be ‘fully vaxxed’ to enter Slovakia?
Perhaps the next ‘wave’ of ‘Covid’ will be blamed on Ukrainians bringing in yet another exotic (and totally made up) ‘variant’.
We’ll have to bring Sir Chris Whitty out of retirement for his ‘expert advice’.
Blimey! No wonder mum’s gone to Iceland.
Sanity.
Iceland solved the 2008 financial crisis by kicking out the bankers.
It’s now solving the Covid ‘pandemic’ by kicking out the vaccine peddlers.
Amazing how a tiny country can teach its ‘superiors’ the basics of good statecraft, eh?
Is it though?
Or in the case of a better offer.
So long as it’s not Poltroon Wales.
Call me irresponsible but I’ve done my best to carry on as normal including flying. Damm me I can’t catch the thing. I’m putting it down to my working class scum genes. To have evolved this far I guess I’m immune or have had it and didn’t know cuz I took no tests.
Same here!
I think my sturdy Yorkshire blood saved me. Eh by gum.
Lowest vaccine uptake in the UK!
By ‘eck!
There’s a craze in Yorkshire at the moment – rubbing ectasy across the teeth. It’s called E by gum.
My wife’s the same; try as she might she can’t seem to get it even though I’ve had it and god knows how many times the kids have (we won’t test them so we’re not sure) it would appear you have pre-existing immunity. If you’re really, really keen on getting it, you could take the vaccine
Finally the penny drops
Until there’s a better offer on the table.
Consistent with the commentary from Bill Gates – ‘Sadly, the Omicron variant is a type of vaccine’ .
But why did he say ‘Sadly’
Because he can’t charge for it?
No question mark needed there.
Holy moly that’s some white flag waving, long may it continue, forced common sense!
Will the UK be lifting travel restrictions?
I see the need to ‘quarantine’ has changed to ‘should follow public health advice’.
Still not good enough – you are still forced to hand over your money to Javid’s shifty mates flogging ‘tests’.
If you are not fully vaccinatedThis is what you need to do if you do not qualify under the fully vaccinated rules for travel to England.
Before you travel to England – not fully vaccinatedBefore you travel to England you must:
You will need to enter your PCR test booking reference number in the passenger locator form.
When you arrive in England – not fully vaccinatedYou do not need to quarantine when you arrive in England.
You must take the COVID-19 PCR test that you booked before you travelled.
You can take the test any time after you arrive and before the end of day 2 at the latest. The day you arrive in England is day 0.
If the test result is positive or unclear, you should follow public health advice.
This guidance came into effect on 24 February 2022 and will be updated on 1 April 2022.
determined to make dosh one way or another AND talk double-speak ‘the danger has passed, but just in case it hasn’t …’
With “fully vaccinated” being a constantly moving target.
How about just not doing it? Surely no-one’s checking at this stage.
Will be updated on 1 April – well after the CoronaCircusAct has been renewed, then?
Herd immunity? But isn’t that just a myth? After all, they have been telling us for 2 years that it doesn’t really exist, just some unsubstantiated theory by some half-baked scientists.
Every political leader, scientist or doctor who even mentioned the words ‘herd immunity’ was vilified and referred to as wishing to commit mass murder by ‘letting people die’. But now, like a deus ex machine, it’s a real thing after all? Ain’t ‘The Science’ grand.
Oddly, NL is also lifting most of its restrictions on Friday 25 February..
I’ve been arguing with vaccine zealots for the past 20 years and they only believe in “vaccine” induced herd immunity and not “natural” herd immunity.
I really, really don’t get that. I can understand someone believing vaccines help in priming your immune system without actually undergoing the illness itself.
But the bottom line is the same – your immune system is exposed to an alien invader, it mounts a response to eliminate the invader. A person’s own immune response does all the work, one way or the other. If herd immunity is achieved, it’s because enough people’s own bodies have built up immunity, however it was achieved.
I think a lot of people think that vaccines themselves provide protection, like a bullit proof vest does against bullits.
The vaccine zealots argument was that anyone who doesn’t have a vaccine is causing potential harm to others.
My argument was that I would rather risk a dose of an illness and gain natural immunity than risk the harmful effects of vaccines.
They only wanted herd immunity from vaccines and not give people the individual right of natural immunity.
Every disease was waning due to better sanitation than the introduction of vaccines.
https://childrenshealthdefense.org/child-health-topics/false-narratives/deaths-from-childhood-diseases-were-declining-before-vaccines/
If the vaccine does anything, it mimics one infection and triggers an immune response. That is then remembered next time the person comes into contact with the virus. Whether it actually does that, and for how long, now seems doubtful, but there was never any assertion that it would do more. It was just intended to be a way of arriving at herd immunity faster. The end result would be the same.
The Covid jab is NOT a vaccine.
It produces antibodies against the spike protein of the Wuhan variant only and no other parts of the virus or variants.
The antibodies wane within months.
It makes infection more likely.
It doesn’t give any form of immunity.
It causes no end of health problems and should be stopped immediately.
That is my understanding; cod science maybe…
vaccine >Spike protein ( approximation of Alpha strain spike protein not precise replica) >”less severe ” – therefore extremely narrow effect; does NOTHING for other variants because spike protein sufficiently genetically different variant, except induce ADE potentially; immune effect zero beyond a brief initial reaction.
Virus>full spectrum antigenic “hit”> natural immune response to whole antigen spectrum including memory T cells, leucocytes and lymphocytes> significantly wider and longer lived.
And this ignores any prior immunity from previous exposure to Coronaviruses…
That’s about it but the “extremely narrow effect” is not a beneficial one.
Granted – I was not intending to praise ” the jab” but bury it..
How do these zealots think normal vaccines work?
They’ll next tell us that they’ve discovered Ivermectin etc. can treat covid! Where have they been for the last 2 years??
”Most of” just isn’t good enough. They’re servants, not masters. When will people stop kowtowing?
after 2 years, finally going back to their pre-pandemic response.
the Director of the hospital will need a new mattress – but that’s about it
Well, knock me down with a unicorn’s nose feather.
Anything more I could say would be superfluous.
Will Iceland now be uncountried for peddling harmful disinformation and anti-science?
Really, how long do you reckon a Twatter or Failbook account would last if you simply cited what they have just said?
Totally agree, ridiculous
Entry to Iceland. Yes, sounds very ‘free’.
Third-country citizens are still not authorized to travel to Iceland unless exemptions apply. Note: As of January 1, 2021, UK nationals have the status of third-country nationals.
Rules at the border are in force until February 28th 2022.
https://www.covid.is/sub-categories/risk-areas
But all restrictionss are gone.The above quoted does not exist today
no shit
Another reverse ferret by a formally wholly compliant NWO technocracy client FAKE democratic administration! In other news, Trudeau gets an arse kicking from his globocap handlers for letting the cat out of the bag by seizing trucker’s assets! Result…he wind’s his neck in and cancels his Neo-Nazi totalitarian legislation…
We were in Iceland in January 2020 and noticed that most of the Chinese tourists, thousands of them, were wearing masks.
Icelands main industry is tourism and ending the unnecessary restrictions is a decision they should have made 2 years ago.
What a pity our lot of so and so’s can’t admit the same. I, and many others, have been saying so since day 1.
2 lost years and a financially ruined and fundamentally changed country for what. For what!!
At last, a country showing common sense.
“Restrictions do not have any effect at this point in time,”. Er, restrictions have never had any effect. The virus is airborne, carried by aerosols, so the only effective measure would be a pure vacuum.
Having a population living in a pure vacuum is a Eugenicist’s Nirvana…?
Did you ever get that feeling that you wanted to scream from the rooftops…We F’ing told you so two F’ing years ago you PLONKERS!