Bishop lashes out at “unclear” Covid rules

There have been no church services since before Christmas, and it appears unlikely that any will be held this coming Sunday either.

“We really should reopen our churches, but it is impossible for us to make any decisions with the lack of clarity we get from the authorities,” says bishop Jógvan Fíðriksson.

“According to the government’s Covid traffic light system, the country should go into lockdown when we reach 75 daily positive cases averaged over a week. Now we’re seeing 200-300 daily cases, and restrictions seem to apply only to the churches. This lack of clarity simply serves to confuse everyone.”

PM: churches can reopen

Responding to the bishop’s criticism, Prime Minister Bárður á Steig Nielsen says that the revised Covid guidelines introduced on 9 December allow for 100 people gathering indoors, which means that most of the country’s churches can resume their services.

Regarding the traffic light system, he says that he announced two weeks ago that as Omicron started to spread, the basis for the traffic light system shifted from being based on the number of daily cases to the number of hospitalisations, which remains relatively low.

Updated information

“It appears that the confusion that the bishop is referring to is based on the old recommendations,” he says.

“To prevent further confusion, we have now deleted the old recommendations from corona.fo so that we now only list the revised recommendations.”

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

Read the Faroese versions of this article here and here.

More Faroese News in English.