A fully vaccinated American couple arrived in Iceland to get married, but began their stay at the Lind isolation hotel last Monday after both were diagnosed with the coronavirus following a border test. Gylfi Þór Þorsteinsson, overseer epidemic centers, says, “Yes, they found it pretty awful.”
Gylfi believes that about fifteen fully vaccinated tourists, holding all the required certifications, were diagnosed as infected at the border since April and had been isolated in an isolation hotel. Therefore, testing of vaccinated people is important.
Despite the fact that people from high-risk areas are no longer required to stay in a quarantine center upon arrival in the country, quite a few of them reside there. Currently, there are 279 tourists in Fosshótel Reykjavík. Gylfi says the people who go there have no choice but to stay there for the five days they are quarantined.
The hotel staff does not have any advance data on how many people from each plane will decide to stay at the hotel. Usually at the beginning of the week it is about 200-250 people, but at the weekend it is over 300 people. “The shuttle bus to the quarantine hotel doesn’t run anymore, so people just come here on their own,” says Gylfi, and most people probably come by the airport bus. “There are only tourists there, so all of them are already quarantined.”
In addition to the 279 tourists staying at Fosshótel Reykjavík, 20 people stay at the Lind isolation hotel, 15 of them in isolation. (data from June 22, 22:39).