REYKJAVIK, Iceland (LifeSiteNews) — Iceland has announced it’s dropping all of its remaining COVID-19 restrictions on Friday, arguing that more people need to be exposed to the virus to acquire natural immunity in order to end the pandemic.
In a statement Wednesday announcing the rollback of its border restrictions and curtailments of public gatherings, Iceland’s Ministry of Health asserted, “Widespread societal resistance to COVID-19 is the main route out of the epidemic.”
“To achieve this, as many people as possible need to be infected with the virus as the vaccines are not enough, even though they provide good protection against serious illness,” the ministry added.
Beginning Friday, citizens of Iceland will no longer be required to abide by curfews or limit public gatherings to fewer than 200 people.
Iceland will lift all public #COVID19 restrictions starting Friday, saying that herd immunity is the way out of the #pandemic. #mandates https://t.co/PHS7B5jXQG
— Epoch Times Canada (@EpochTimesCan) February 24, 2022
Though it has enacted curbs on social gatherings during the pandemic, Iceland has stood apart from its European neighbors by refusing to implement vaccine passports.
Worldcrunch reported that Iceland’s decision to forgo divisive measures was “a conscious choice in a small nation to try to avoid conflict in society.”
Last year, as European nations and major U.S. cities began implementing COVID jab passport schemes, Iceland’s Chief Epidemiologist Thorolfur Gudnason said there was “no basis” for following suit and creating a two-tiered society in the small Nordic country.
Meanwhile, coercive COVID jab mandates throughout Europe and the United States have caused serious societal divisions. Top-down requirements have forced unvaccinated workers from their jobs, excluded citizens from public venues, and driven a wedge between family members.
A recent study from researchers in Denmark found that vaccinated respondents in 21 countries harbored significant antipathy toward the unvaccinated despite the fact that vaccine trials have never produced evidence that the injections stop infection or transmission, while there is strong evidence to suggest that the “vaccinated” are just as likely to carry and transmit the virus as the unvaccinated.
It’s unclear whether Iceland intends to re-implement COVID mandates in future if infection rates were to spike.
Over the past weeks and months over a dozen other countries have dropped some or all of their mandates and restrictions.
The abrupt removal of totalitarian public health dictates has left many wondering whether the restrictions will be eliminated for good. Some countries, including Israel, have removed COVID mandates in the past only to re-apply them later on.