Covid expert: why wait with school closures?

Yesterday’s 78 new Covid cases bring the average for the past week to 66.

If the weekly average surpasses 75, we move into the red zone of the ‘traffic light’ Covid response plan announced on 10 November.

The Faroes remain in the yellow zone – stage 2 – though with a few revisions https://kvf.fo/greinar/2021/12/09/new-covid-restrictions valid initially for the next two weeks.

Why wait?

The new revisions include an early Christmas holiday for school pupils, starting on Wednesday 15 December.

As most of the infection appears to occur in schools, not day care centres, no changes have been announced about daycare centres.

However, Covid consultant Pál Weihe says he is slightly worried by this decision.

“From a public health perspective, it would make sense to close schools and all daycare institutions immediately. But this decision is based on a political balancing act, which also makes sense,” he says.

“I am, however, slightly concerned about what infection figures we will be seeing by Wednesday when the schools close.”

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The professor is also critical of the lack of restrictions surrounding sports, especially as such events bring together children from across the country.

“I can only urge the sports clubs to do their utmost to prevent further spread, i.e. by requiring corona passes for all participants and spectators.”

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Weihe, who has been a proponent of border testing throughout the pandemic, says he is pleased to hear about plans to reintroduce mandatory testing of all arrivals.

“I know it takes some time to set up the testing system at the borders, but I am a little disappointed that this setup wasn’t implemented as soon as we heard about the Omicron variant,” he says.

“Having said that, given the high transmissibility of this variant, it would probably have been difficult to keep it out of our country regardless.”

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

Read the Faroese version of this article here.

More Faroese News in English.