Covid-19 in Iceland: Violated Isolation and Infected over 100

https://www.icelandreview.com/society/covid-19-in-iceland-violated-isolation-and-infected-over-100/

by dredmorbius • 6 years ago

49 90 6 years ago

xchaotic• 6 years ago

Well, the country is reliant on tourism. But bad apples are everywhere, I think such people need to be held against their will until they are no longer dangerous to others.

djsumdog4• 6 years ago

I think such people need to be held against their will until they are no longer dangerous to others

That's immoral, unethical and insane:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMj1ficDelc

MrDresden• 6 years ago

I agree, though under the current circumstances I would have no problem with having individuals who do not honour quarantine rules "jailed" in quarantine hotels (we have one in Iceland).

Not specifically talking about these supposed two French tourists. Iceland obviously has had domestic cases of individuals who believe the virus to be a hoax, and thus decided not to quarantine after being tested positive.

These individuals were, according to memory, held against their will during the remainder of their quarantine and fined.

tyingq• 6 years ago

How does that reconcile with Covid-19's supposed R0 of ~5.7? (Honest curious question)

newen• 6 years ago

Statistics, distributions, outliers. R0 is just the average value.

klmadfejno• 6 years ago

R0 is an average metric. Averages are not your friend.

(don't downvote people who are asking a technical question!)

jws• 6 years ago

The R0 is an average across many behavior profiles. These individuals engaged in exceptionally dangerous behavior and are the part of the samples that are above the mean.

ceejayoz• 6 years ago

Some people will infect nobody. Some will infect one. Some infect 100.

5.7 would be the average (and it's an estimate, with many variables, some of which change from place to place and over time) of all these.

daveFNbuck• 6 years ago

R0 is a statistical average, but even if we assume that every person infects exactly 5.7 other people, these two tourists would have infected 11.4 people. Those 11.4 people would infect a further 64.98 people. you're already pretty close to 100 after just two levels of spread.

The only reason it's limited to as low as 100 is that people are taking precautions to prevent the infection from spreading.

dredmorbius8• 6 years ago

Active case count has risen from a low of 8 on July 23 to 400 currently. Daily new cases from 1 to 49 in the same period.

tgsovlerkhgsel• 6 years ago

It includes infections indirectly caused by them (i.e. people infected by people who got infected by the couple), for as far as it can be traced.

I hope these people get to make civil claims against the couple.

dredmorbius8• 6 years ago

Iceland's response to Covid-19 has been among the very best in the world. But the threat very much persists. The selfishness and criminal negligence of two French tourists has resulted in 400 new infections and counting, likely to result in 2-16 deaths given case fatality rates in Iceland (0.5%) and globally (4%).

I found myself recently attempting to explain to someone who seems strongly motivated not to understand the principle that a crisis can be both enduring and critical, in answer to the false assertion that “ongoing crises are not emergencies.”

Iceland proves my point. As has New Zealand recently: "Covid 19 coronavirus: 5 new cases as Jacinda Ardern reveals alert level call" (https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&object...)

This thing is with us until it isn’t. Covid operates on its own schedule, not ours. People not being selfish idiots would help one hell of a lot to speed the process and lower risks, deaths, and costs, however.

vertis2• 6 years ago

I crossed the border (by Ferry) into Estonia the other day, and was informed by the border guard that I would need to isolate for 14 days[1], and asked to sign a document saying that I understood the isolation.

The way the border guard approached the subject, made it seem like he was worried that I would flip out at having my movements restricted. I'm guessing, but I think this was because I travel on an Australian passport, and the assumption becomes that I'm a tourist and that it will ruin my holiday.

As soon as I started talking about my isolation plans (I even went to the supermarket in Sweden before the ferry[2]), he relaxed a lot. It became "very good then, carry on".

I do wonder how many people are becoming unreasonable in situations like this.

[1] You can take tests to shorten it.

[2] It is allowed to go to the supermarket here while in isolation, but I didn't know that before arriving.

bredren• 6 years ago

I do wonder how many people are becoming unreasonable in situations like this.

Pushback on masks or any type of covid-altered behavior is not limited to "walmart meltdown" youtube social shame videos.

While it has been walked back, poll workers in a Missouri county were told: "You may act surprised that you don’t have a face mask on properly and then apologize as you put the mask on,” “Wear your mask correctly until the voter leaves the polling place. Please do this every time a voter says something to you.”

[1] https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/516943-st-...

qwerty1234599• 6 years ago

The people traveling abroad currently are mostly absolute idiots.

Exactly the kind that will break mandatory isolation and are way more likely to have an ongoing covid infection than a random person from the general population, due to overall careless behaviour.

The sensible people are all waiting in their homes.

So yes, I guess the border guard you spoke to has had to endure tantrums from these people on a daily basis

masklinn• 6 years ago

I do wonder how many people are becoming unreasonable in situations like this.

Would be an interesting stat. I would hope not that many but expect a large population given they'd be people who have elected to take short-term vacations in foreign country during a pandemic, they'd either be very self-centered or not very bright.

aunty_helen4• 6 years ago

Covid operates on its own schedule, not ours.

It reminds me of the Christmas Day truces, we were able to put aside our differences for a day.

But it seems we're incapable of understanding this doesn't apply to virology. Covid doesn't care if it's your wedding, sisters birthday or that your fathers dying.

We seem to assume that it has some kind of humanity or that the just lowering my mask to say something once won't have any affect.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_truce

SpicyLemonZest• 6 years ago

I think you're misunderstanding the psychology. It's not a matter of people literally believing virology doesn't apply to them; it's just a values tradeoff. The virus might not care if my father were dying, but I would, and I wouldn't allow a virus to stop me from being there for him.

namdnay• 6 years ago

I thought the French tourist thing was debunked? I remember seeing an article saying they hadn’t infected anyone

oflocet2• 6 years ago

It was indeed.

https://pledgetimes.com/covid-19-iceland-denies-the-responsi...

jMyles3• 6 years ago

Covid operates on its own schedule, not ours.

We do have some tuning knobs though, including vertical risk-stratification, which has collected dust around the world.

It is possible to have a much more acute and accelerated course among the least vulnerable populations while isolating the more vulnerable populations.

Whether Iceland and New Zealand will be viewed as successes depends in part on how much misery is inflicted during the long period it will take to finally reach herd immunity in those places, and how many people in vulnerable sub-populations are infected along the way.

vvanders• 6 years ago

Population x Fatality Rate will tell you how much it "costs" to achieve herd immunity.

That also doesn't take into account long term impacts that are not fatal.

djsumdog4• 6 years ago

I use to live in NZ. At times I wish I had stayed because at least they've been out of this, but it's also an isolated island with ~4 million people.

Even though they've mostly had elimination (with one re-lockdown due to Auckland), I do agree it's a bad long term strategy. The T-Cell immunity research shows there may be more people who are immune than we think, and Sweden shows us this virus can safely burn out in a population.

People from NZ may not be able to safely travel out/into their nation for years.

I am very doubtful of a safe vaccine in any reasonable amount of time. Fatalities have dropped to the floor across the board, so everyone is going on and on about cases. We don't even collect the viral load amounts for PCR tests in most countries, so we have no idea how many infections are just traces of virus, versus full infections.

This whole show has been a clusterfuck. I think my predictions from March are coming true:

https://battlepenguin.com/philosophy/covid-19-is-two-disease...

dredmorbius8• 6 years ago

"Vertical risk stratification" as a search phrase returns very few results. Could you explain?

arcticbull3• 6 years ago

... likely to result in 2-16 deaths given case fatality rates in Iceland (0.5%) and globally (4%).

I can't believe people continue to use CFR for evaluating risk. It's a totally worthless metric, and now that we have serological studies, an approximation of the IFR is available. The IFR is somewhere around 0.5% plus or minus.

The disease is effectively the same the whole world over and is equally fatal the whole world over. The reason for an order of magnitude spread in CFR is because Iceland is testing everyone (hence approximating the actual fatality rate, IFR) whereas every other country is testing different groups.

Yes the fatality rate is 4% for people who walk into hospital hugely ill. This is a sampling bias. It's like saying skydiving is 99% fatal based on counting only people whose parachutes failed to deploy. Then presenting the risk as "anywhere between 0.001% and 99%."

It's about 0.5% across the whole population. Much lower for children (lower than the flu). About the same as the flu for 20s and 30s people, particularly healthy ones. It's much, much higher for old sick people (20-30% in a nursing home, for instance).

There's no way to say 2-16 deaths based on the 400 infected by multiplying 400 by 0.5%; it could be zero if the 400 infected were kids, and it could be 150 if the French folks did a tour of nursing homes.

[edit] 'just-juan-post' provided a link to a study indicating my figures are overstated and the fatality rates are probably half that. [1]

[1] https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M20-5352

anoncake4• 6 years ago

Of course people continue believing in a death rate of 4-5%. Having panicked over a disease with a death rate below 0.5% must be quite embarrassing.

WarOnPrivacy4• 6 years ago

(Not singling you out here) It's a bit unsettling to limit the risk discussions to death rates. It feels like no one is compiling stats on people who are exiting Covid with new, life altering disabilities.

mr_woozy4• 6 years ago

The reason for an order of magnitude spread in CFR is because Iceland is testing everyone (hence approximating the actual fatality rate, IFR) whereas every other country is testing different groups.

We're not actually testing everyone here, it's a common repeated trope from international news but testing is readily available to all who want to and we test all inbound arrivals via the single airport (now we do, didn't before). They can either self quarantine for 14 days after that or get another test in 4-5 days.

lbeltrame3• 6 years ago

People not being selfish idiots would help one hell of a lot to speed the process and lower risks

In my opinion, not quite. What it highlights is that non-pharmaceutical interventions like quarantines and lockdowns are at best tools (very blunt tools) to slow down the virus. But you can't win against it with them alone.

In this case, negligence, but you can imagine that errors can and will be made simply because we aren't perfect. And the spread will start again.

It is a completely unsustainable strategy on the long run, and that's why countries (at least the ones which can afford that) should look more into pharmaceutical development and therapeutic options.

dredmorbius8• 6 years ago

To quote six-months-ago-me, yes, curtailing spread through quarantine and hygiene is our principle tool, "for the duration of the epidemic, or until such time as any control is utterly futile" and recognises "Epidemiological response is about reducing vectors, contacts, reservoirs, and susceptibility, as well as second-order risks. Limiting movement, enhanced disease monitoring, contacts-tracing, quarantine, free treatment, mandatory vaccination (if available), financial aid and intervention to individuals, businesses, and the financial sector (in that order)".

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22528060

It's possible for diseases to drop below the noise floor or sustaining transmissiion (plague, hantavirus), or for mutual evolution to reduce severity (rhinoviruses, influenza). Vaccines will likely be the long-term resolution, but this likely remains 2+ years off by optimistic estimates (WHO, Bill Gates).

I consider a fair probability that an eendemic state will be the new normal.

anoncake4• 6 years ago

People being "selfish" speeds up the process. The quicker people get infected, the faster this nonsense is over.

barumi2• 6 years ago

The selfishness and criminal negligence of two French tourists has resulted in 400 new infections and counting, likely to result in 2-16 deaths given case fatality rates in Iceland (0.5%) and globally (4%).

Interesting. Do you have any source that corroborates that story?

dredmorbius8• 6 years ago

Worldometers provides case history (total, current active, daily new) and calculated CFR. Calculated likely mortaality is based on this data.

Global:

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

Iceland:

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/iceland/

mr_woozy4• 6 years ago

As someone currently living here in Iceland this entire incident boils my blood. As most likely those two tourists will never be fined as it would 'send the wrong message' to tourists thinking of visiting the country.

At the moment we have an entire school shut down and increased restrictions and nothing has actually changed the dynamic so that miscreants won't ruin the progress after this 3rd wave passes. Due to this latest outbreak we're now at a daily infection risk rate of 87 or so, well above the 50 mark other countries use to determine risky countries.

The tourists should be named, shamed, fined and put back on a plane immediately.

aunty_helen4• 6 years ago

I dislike how people seem to think that the rules apply to the masses but on an individual level they don't apply to them. Something that this pandemic has really exemplified.

A case in point, 3 German tourists will be getting a flight home from New Zealand after deciding they could sail into the country.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/12290190...

dane-pgp• 6 years ago

I dislike how people seem to think that the rules apply to the masses but on an individual level they don't apply to them.

It's particularly galling when the person with this mindset is also responsible for writing those very rules:

https://time.com/5842489/dominic-cummings-coronavirus/

s1artibartfast6• 6 years ago

Yeah, I think a lot of the time people expect the rules to be flexible and applied in a reasonable manner.

In the story you linked, any reasonable person would have let the Germans dock.

They had been isolated at sea for more than 14 days, and applied for a docking permit through the appropriate channel, and stated they needed to repair their boat.

The NZ government has a process which they used, but rejected them based on a procedural technicality.

aunty_helen4• 6 years ago

The borders are closed. That's not a technicality and having your own form of transport doesn't change this.

jfoster2• 6 years ago

If you allow flexibility on such a matter, people will come to expect it. Some will be doing things where the flexibility would be permissible, but a lot would go further and be surprised that flexibility cannot be extended to them. It's a very slippery slope, and doesn't really seem feasible to implement.

robocat2• 6 years ago

In the story you linked, any reasonable person would have let the Germans dock.

Shit NO. Extracts from article below:

“Their application was declined because the Director-General of Health was not reasonably satisfied that the ship had a compelling need to arrive in New Zealand that reached the high threshold required”

“People in vessels travelling to New Zealand to avoid the cyclone season in the Pacific may have other genuine humanitarian reasons or other compelling needs for coming, which would need to be demonstrated in order for these vessels to qualify for an exemption – but financial loss alone is unlikely to meet the criteria.”

“‘As much as our country is known for its hospitality, New Zealand cannot become a maritime Covid-19 safe haven for everyone in unfortunate circumstances’.”

“Immigration NZ’s national manager of border and visa operations Peter Elms said their decision to knowingly travel here without approval “0’demonstrates a blatant disregard for New Zealand’s border restrictions’.”

NZ has nearly eradicated Covid again, so we are a desirable destination, and we need to ensure we are strict otherwise every Tomaz, Diyk, und Harri will be sailing here.

dehrmann2• 6 years ago

They should have applied before disembarking, but three people traveling by boat for (I assume) over 7 days are a very low risk. A lot of regulations that have popped up have been overly blunt.

rstuart4133• 6 years ago

but three people traveling by boat for (I assume) over 7 days are a very low risk.

I think there is an element of proportionality missing here. In this case, it's a very low risk of what? Well, it's a very low risk of going through yet another lock down. The previous one cost the NZ economy billions and threw something like 10% of their population out of work.

In case the picture isn't clear, I'm an Australian. We have benefit of experience here. One state, Victoria, managed to screw up their quarantine regime. The result has been over 700 deaths, and 100's of billions of dollars in lost work, and an economy that shrank by 40%.

The other extreme is Western Australia. Unlike the rest of Australia's states, they shut their borders completely, turning themselves into almost a country within a country. They have been and continue to be heavily criticised for it. The outcome has been no new cases for months, no lockdown whatsoever for months, and they are the only state whose economy grew in the last quarter.

In economic terms, it's very clear what the right course of action is. And given the cost of just one case leaking through the quarantine wall, I'm sort of surprised the penalties aren't hasher to send the strongest possible message. Burn the boat maybe?

just-juan-post• 6 years ago

Infection Fatality Ratios for COVID-19 Among Noninstitutionalized Persons 12 and Older: Results of a Random-Sample Prevalence Study

Sept 2020, Annals of Internal Medicine

https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M20-5352

People aged 40 or below have a .01% chance of dying.

People over the age of 70 have a 1.17% chance of dying.

Overall the chance of dying from the virus is 0.26%.

I encourage you to share this information.

Covid-19 in Iceland: Violated Isolation and Infected over 100

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