As with many, if not most countries in the world, coronavirus pandemic is at the forefront of Icelanders’ minds these days. With vaccine plans now to be shaped, as well as now to be able to boast of lowest infection rate in Europe, many Icelanders are beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel – and not a moment too soon, as the popular winter holiday is fast approaching. Two Sjálfstæðisflokkur MPs – Sigríður Á Andersen and Brynjar Níelsson – have, however, been very critical of the pandemic restrictions, which they consider mostly unnecessary. Both are members of “Out of the hut”, a small but noisy group of Icelanders who are skeptical about limiting pandemics.
In other news, Mom Air has always been an art project. Although Grapevine and others strongly suspected this because of some obvious clues left by artist Oddur Eysteinn Friðriksson when the “low-cost airline” first took off, Oddur strongly denied that this was the case and claimed that it was a real and true airline with staff. , planes and airport rakes and all. But then he announced at a press conference on November 18 that the case was all his final project for the Iceland Academy of the Arts. In the meantime, he received many job applications and numerous bookings, which he deliberately frustrated due to error messages he posted on the site. So, good job, we guess?
Unemployment Many Icelanders have been worried these days. Unemployment is forecast to reach 11.3% this December, which is higher than in February and March 2009, which was 9.3%, which rose to that level due to the total collapse of the financial sector. As always, foreigners are particularly hard hit: despite being about 14% of the total population, 41% of all unemployed Icelanders are foreigners. The Poles, who make up Iceland’s largest ethnic group, have been hit hard and are 20% unemployed in Iceland, even though they make up about 5% of the total population.
Ásgeir Bragi Ægisson, or Ouse, as he calls himself, is 19 years old from the small northwestern town of Sauðárkrókur. He happens too one of the leading Icelandic artists on Spotify right now, with his single Dead Eyes over 36 million plays – about 4 million more than Björk’s most played song, It’s Oh So Quiet. How did he do that? Not even Ásgeir seems sure, but he is not complaining. He has signed a contract with the American publishing company Twelve Tones with a contract worth tens of millions of ISK. A country boy can live, for sure!