key: cord-0828893-8n60ppml
authors: Strøm, Marin; Kristiansen, Marnar Fríðheim; Christiansen, Debes Hammershaimb; Weihe, Pál; Petersen, Maria Skaalum
title: Elimination of COVID-19 in the Faroe Islands: effectiveness of massive testing and intensive case and contact tracing.
date: 2020-12-17
journal: The Lancet regional health. Europe
DOI: 10.1016/j.lanepe.2020.100011
sha: b94f8544175bc81193204b5555047f37cc7fecd6
doc_id: 828893
cord_uid: 8n60ppml

nan

In their study, Jefferies et al. document the impact of an early and intense suppression strategy towards elimination of COVID-19 in New Zealand. 1 In the Faroe Islands, an isolated archipelago with 52,500 inhabitants, large scale testing, contact tracing and isolation combined with social distancing lead to an initial successful elimination by late April, despite a relatively high starting point. 2 Subsequently, lockdown measures including restrictions on population movement were eased stepwise over several weeks, but on 3

August, after 104 days without local transmission, a second wave hit the Faroes ( fig.1 ), similar to the experience in New Zealand. 3 De-escalating border restrictions from 15 June (14-day quarantine replaced by a single negative test upon entry) and large private and public gatherings resulted in a COVID-19 outbreak in early August. In response, a massive testing regime was implemented along with rigorous contact tracing and quarantine, but without reinforcing lockdown measures: 42,410 tests were performed from 3 to 24 August (81,558 tests/100,000/pers), 186 positive cases were detected (358/100,000) 4 , corresponding to a prevalence of 0·23%. The funding sources had no role in the study design, interpretation of the data, or publication of the results.

All authors declare nothing to disclose.

Part of the data is public available at www.corona.fo. The remaining data may be made available from the corresponding authors upon reasonable request.

We thank the Faroese Research Council for support for contributions to related covid-19 research projects which have given leverage to spin-offs, including the data presented in this manuscript. The lower panel shows a timeline of COVID-19-positive cases. Local cases are divided into quarantined (green) or not quarantined (red). Imported cases are shown in orange colors. Cases with a history of past infection, confirmed by presence of total antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 (n=2) are not shown, and cases among crew on foreign vessels tested in Faroese harbors (n=63 from July 24 to August 23) are not included because they did not interact with the general population and constitute a relatively large proportion of cases compared to the population, without resulting in any SARS-CoV-2 community transmission.

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Seroprevalence of SARS-CoV-2-Specific Antibodies, Faroe Islands

Successful Elimination of Covid-19 Transmission in New Zealand

Statistics -Corona í Føroyum

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