PM urges against large New Year’s parties

Yesterday saw yet another all-time daily high of Covid cases.

“We have had a steady increase in daily Covid cases over the past few days, and more than 200 positive tests were registered in the past 24 hours,” said Prime Minister Bárður á Steig at a Covid news conference this afternoon.

“It now looks likely that most of us, if not all of us, will be infected with the Omicron variant at some point. It is therefore crucial that we do not all get infected at the same time because this would collapse our hospital system.

”We need to stretch out the infection curve as far as possible. Having witnessed a big spike in daily cases over the Christmas holidays, I urge everyone planning to gather for New Year’s celebrations to practise extreme caution and stay within your social bubble, i.e. only the people you normally socialise with, ideally only with your own household.”

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Police chief Michael Boolsen, who heads the epidemic commission, added that those planning to celebrate New Year’s outside of their own household should limit the number of people to ten.

Despite these pleas, the Faroes remain in the yellow zone of the government’s traffic light Covid response system.

The Prime Minister said yesterday that this provisional decision was made because the hospitals are currently able to deal with the pressure.

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Dr Bjarni á Steig, medical advisor to the Ministry of Health and a member of the epidemic commission, said that the vaccines remain the best protection.

“Those who do get infected despite being vaccinated are less likely than their unvaccinated counterparts to pass the virus on to others. Vaccinated people also tend to experience milder symptoms, which reduces the risk of hospitalisation. So there is no doubt that the vaccines remain effective.”

He added that the incubation period for Omicron is significantly shorter than for previous variants and that there have been many asymptomatic cases.

For further information about Covid-19 in the Faroes, including daily figures, visit corona.fo.

Read the Faroese version of this article here.

Translated by prosa.fo

More Faroese News in English. (The link on the mobile site under the ‘tænasta’ link inside the three-line menu).