Faroe Islands: 4000+ Tested For Coronavirus, 173 Infected, 1 Hospitalized, 0 Deaths

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As I’ve lamented before, we have poor data — very poor data — on the coronavirus and resulting COVID-19 disease that is wreaking havoc on our world. As a result, making any forecasts about what will happen means making dozens of assumptions to fill the gaps. Read this FiveThirtyEight piece to delve into exactly how hard it is to create a mathematical model for what will happen.

That is why I wrote this piece about mass testing of Icelanders using a proper (random sample) selection process. (Unfortunately, the government of Iceland hasn’t updated us on the results of that study since March 21.) In the comments of that piece and others, a resident of the Faroe Islands, Bjarki, shared that they were also testing much more broadly than others and had tested 4% of the population by that point. That figure is now approaching 9%. The results are interesting.

Before getting into the numbers, a few notes about precautions taken there since March 12: no more than 100 people were allowed to be in a place at a time, a maximum of 10 people could be on a bus, social isolation required if you tested positive as well as quarantine for anyone you’ve been in contact with, anyone coming from overseas had to home quarantine themselves, strict restrictions on hospital and elderly care facility visitations, schools closed, and work-from-home orders where possible. Testing started in late February and they didn’t have the problem that many other places had due to a limited number of tests (ahem, USA) because an expert on the Faroe Islands had developed testing there starting in January so that they wouldn’t have to rely on Denmark for the tests. The first confirmed case came on March 4 and the second on March 6.

When Bjarki shared this English website with us about the results, there were nearly 2000 people tested, 92 coronavirus cases in total, 78 infected at that time, 14 recovered, 0 hospitalizations, 0 deaths, and 600+ people quarantined.

Bjarki also shared a non-English site with more information. The data are updated daily. As of April 1, the website shows:

  • 4287 tested
  • 173 cases in total
  • 98 currently infected
  • 75 recovered
  • 1 hospitalization
  • 0 deaths
  • 374 quarantined (just a bit more than half the number on March 21)

You also get nifty charts concerning daily data:

There are various conclusions we can perhaps make, tentatively. First of all, the island’s procedures for handling the virus seem to be working very well, as the number of infected people basically leveled off starting on March 20. Also, whether it’s because of early detection and treatment (it’s not clear what medical treatment they are providing there for people who get sick) or because of the range of social distancing rules and guidance they put into place to protect immunocompromised people and the elderly — or due to other factors — the need for hospitalization is apparently minimal (the number hospitalized changes by the day, and I don’t see a total number for that figure, but the most I have seen is 3). Furthermore, there have been zero coronavirus-linked deaths.

There are also fewer tests being taken now, which is presumably because there are fewer people showing symptoms.

Overall, infections are being spread out over time and the Faroe Islands’ medical system has definitely not been overwhelmed by extreme COVID-19 cases (as happened in Italy, New York City, and other places). We will see what happens in coming weeks, including what happens when the government eases up restrictions and guidelines, letting islanders get back to their normal daily lives.

By the way, the overall figures/statistics in the Faroe Islands are similar to what Iceland has seen so far. Comparison with other countries is spurious, in my opinion, because most other countries are basically only testing very sick people (USA) or people who are likely to be sick.


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Zachary Shahan

Zach is tryin' to help society help itself one word at a time. He spends most of his time here on CleanTechnica as its director, chief editor, and CEO. Zach is recognized globally as an electric vehicle, solar energy, and energy storage expert. He has presented about cleantech at conferences in India, the UAE, Ukraine, Poland, Germany, the Netherlands, the USA, Canada, and Curaçao. Zach has long-term investments in Tesla [TSLA], NIO [NIO], Xpeng [XPEV], Ford [F], ChargePoint [CHPT], Amazon [AMZN], Piedmont Lithium [PLL], Lithium Americas [LAC], Albemarle Corporation [ALB], Nouveau Monde Graphite [NMGRF], Talon Metals [TLOFF], Arclight Clean Transition Corp [ACTC], and Starbucks [SBUX]. But he does not offer (explicitly or implicitly) investment advice of any sort.

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