Last Updated on August 12, 2021 by cwl

Iceland is on our short list of places to visit. Some spectacular terrain, active volcanoes, etc would make for an interesting tour. But that’s off the table, given the Endless COVID Unpleasantess.

I have often thought that Iceland would be a good COVID “test case”. Small population (about 350k), pretty isolated so that border control might almost be manageable, etc.

An August 3rd article from icelandreview.com outlined the current situation regarding the alleged Delta variation of the virus:

Vaccination Has Not Led to Herd Immunity

Some quotes and comments below:

Note: The quotes are not exact, they are transcribed from a live tweet that occurred on August 3rd.

What has happened in the past two to three weeks is that the Delta variant has taken over all other variants in Iceland. And it has come to light that vaccinated individuals can contract it relatively easily and spread infection.

Chief Epidemiologist Þórólfur Guðnason

There are indications world-wide that “vaccinated” (they are not vaccines per se) individuals are still getting infected. This reinforces the contention that the injections were only designed to reduce the severity of COVID symptoms, not provide immunity. And the effectiveness seems to be dropping off rapidly. Will this lead to a recommendation of an endless series of “booster” shots?

There are however indications that vaccination is preventing serious illness. Around 24 have had to be hospitalised in this wave, just over 1%. In previous waves, that figure was 4-5%. However, 2.4% of unvaccinated people that contract COVID-19 now are hospitalised.

Chief Epidemiologist Þórólfur Guðnason

Again, the injection only potentially reduces symptoms, no immunity is conferred, as stated by the current head of the CDC on August 6th.

The numbers are ambiguous – is he saying that 1% of “vaccinated” people are in hospital, versus 2.4% of unvaccinated people? If so, that’s a small risk reduction for an injection that has a huge number of fatalities and adverse reactions associated with it. Of course the good news is that overall hospitalizations, whether injected or not is below 3 percent. That’s a relief.

“Can you give us information about how many people were vaccinated among those who have been hospitalised in this wave?” Þórólfur says around half of those hospitalised have been vaccinated. The two that have been placed in the ICU are unvaccinated. It’s not possible to draw broad conclusions from this data but vaccination appears to reduce serious illness generally.

Chief Epidemiologist Þórólfur Guðnason

The injections do not seem to stop infection, only potentially reduce the severity.

References

Swiss Policy Research

The Real-World Data Show the Covid Vaccines Are Ineffective