Dear students and parents/parental guardians

A new work week is about to start. I am sure you have heard a lot of news about the COVID-19 epidemic during the past days and weeks. Over 50 Icelanders have now been diagnosed with the COVID-19 virus and on Friday the National Commissioner of the Icelandic Police raised the alert level of the response to the COVID-19 virus outbreak to emergency level. I want to emphasize that you always follow the orders of the Directorate of Health which you will find here. This weekend they have issued a guide for individuals with risk factors connected to COVID-19 which can be found on their website but only in Icelandic at the moment. I have been told by the Directorate of Health that it will be issued in English soon.

I ask you to stay at home if you have a cold or have symptoms that are similar to that of the corona virus. I trust that students that have been ordered into quarantine stay in quarantine as ordered. If you are coming from abroad and are not sure if you are supposed to go into quarantine – please call the number 1700 and get advice from a specialist before you come to school. I also want to remind you to take necessary sanitary measures and refrain from hugging and shaking hands for the next weeks.

Now it is important that we all make an effort to limit he spread of the virus. It is to everyones benefit. It is important for you to know that we will do our best to support those that are in quarantine or need to stay at home because of an underlying illness of their own or a family member. But it is very important that you let us know if you are in that situation by sending an e-mail to [email protected]

At last – even though we have a serious situation going on in the world it is important that we stay calm and do not let fear take over like our president Guðni Th. Jóhannesson said today. I wish you a good week.

Best regards,