Member-only story
Coronavirus Salvation, the Icelandic Way
The United States can learn a lot about infectious disease management from the island nation
Welcome to Impact Factor, your weekly dose of commentary on a new medical study. I’m Dr. F. Perry Wilson coming to you from my office here at Yale University.
This week — Iceland.
Iceland is more than fjords, Bjork, and my favorite volcano Eyjafjallajökull.
Iceland is a bit of an epidemiologist’s dream. An island with only one major port of entry, the international airport in Reykjavík, a highly literate population and a Universal Healthcare System provides nearly perfect conditions to study how infectious diseases spread. So it is no surprise that Iceland provides the best data we have yet on the community spread of the novel coronavirus.
Appearing in the New England Journal, we have this study — which is really three cohort studies in one, with each cohort defined by a testing strategy — and only one mirrors what we’re doing in the US.
First, we have what you might call the standard strategy — targeted testing. You test people…
