Sóley Kaldal

Sóley Kaldal

We are in for a long journey with this pandemic, but there are definitely opportunities to learn from this. The modern Western lifestyle has in many respects become unsustainable – demonstrably too demanding for the planet to handle. We have a great opportunity to innovate and promote resource-lighter alternatives and this is the moment to seize that. It might seem restrictive for a while until we get adjusted, but the benefits of better harmony with other creatures and the ecosystem will be manyfold.
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Smoothing out the Risky Annexes: A Safety Engineer‘s Perspective on Iceland‘s COVID-19 Response

“It was my duty to go back to work and assist in any way that I could,” says Sóley Kaldal, risk management and safety engineer with the Icelandic Coast Guard.  In 2019 she received a Fulbright grant to study international security at Yale University. After the COVID-19 pandemic broke out, Sóley returned home to Iceland, where she is working as a part of the pandemic response team in Iceland while completing her studies at Yale online. She took time out of her busy schedule at the national emergency response headquarters to speak to Fulbright Iceland.

According to Sóley, Iceland was quick to start preparations. “Already in January, when it wasn’t clear the disease would reach Iceland, they had started work in case it came here.” By the time the first case was diagnosed on February 28th, in a traveler returning from Italy, a strong framework was already in place. “Instead of politicians standing in the forefront we have three health and security experts, each of whom spearheads one aspect of the problem: the head of the department of civil protection and emergency management, the surgeon general and the chief epidemiologist. Each of them has a team, and those teams work separately and together to map out the consequences of the pandemic. We are also lucky to have an international genetics company, deCODE Genetics, that has stepped up to help with testing, doubling our testing capacity alongside the national hospital.”

This extensive testing is a key aspect of Iceland’s response. As of this writing, 13% of the nation’s population of 360,000 has been tested for COVID-19, which is probably a world record. The results have informed the experts’ recommendations for public health measures. “We have managed without really intrusive restrictions,” Sóley notes. While social distancing measures have been in place since mid-March, “we managed to keep schools and preschools partly open and avoided complete lockdown. People can go outside, go to the store, take a walk. Some people are allowed to go to work as long as their employers are able to take measures.”

Sóley (right) confers with colleagues at Iceland‘s Emergency Response Headquarters in Reykjavík.

The response has so far been successful in mitigating the effects of the disease; of the 1800 individuals who’ve been diagnosed with COVID-19, nearly 1500 have recovered. “We are cautiously optimistic that we’ve seen the worst of this wave,” says Sóley. Iceland, she notes, has several advantages in combating the pandemic. “In bigger countries with federal and local governments and large cities, the coordination is complicated. That’s not the case in Iceland. The fact that we’re an island is also working well – we are quite isolated, and can monitor our airports and ports quite well. But as long as there is no herd immunity or vaccine, however, we always risk a second peak in infections.”

But Sóley is quick to point out that the disease is only one component of the current crisis. “The first wave is the virus itself and its health consequences. The second wave is a consequence of both the virus and of the measures taken by the government to halt its spread, such as social distancing restrictions and reduced services of all kinds. The long-term effects form the third wave. We already see jobs lost, increased domestic violence, mental health problems, and more. Some of those will bounce back quickly when the restrictions are lifted. Other consequences will ripple through society for a longer time.”

Sóley’s own responsibilities relate to this longer view. “I am on an interdisciplinary team looking at how government institutions and companies are able to provide essential services and maintain business continuity so our population remains safe under these new circumstances. We consider aspects like health, food, transport and financial security. The pillars of the economy – fishing, tourism and to some extent aluminum – are all at risk, especially tourism, which might be in for months of really hard restrictions.” And Iceland’s relative isolation – an advantage when controlling the spread of disease – may turn into a vulnerability. “Our supply chain is long and can be disrupted in quite a few places before it reaches us.”

In a rapidly developing situation, adaptability is key. “We are kind of taking this week by week. The questions we posed three weeks ago are totally different from the ones we analyse today. Some of the consequences are clearly here to stay, even after restrictions on daily life are loosened. We need to make sure that critical infrastructure and essential services are working. A tiny little aspect somewhere might stop a sector from working correctly. We want to find those risky annexes and help smooth them out.”

And in today’s world, no country is truly an island. “Ultimately we are dependent on the whole global economy recovering. We see here the strengths and weaknesses of globalization. Something that happens in one country has an effect within days or hours all around the globe. We need to address globalization from a more common standpoint and reshuffle the cards a bit on what aspects we should be more self-sufficient about and where should we strengthen cooperation and information-sharing.”

“In that context, we also need to look at foreseeable threats, not least due to climate change as a threat multiplier,” Sóley warns. “Environmental change is probably one of the reasons why we have COVID-19.We are destroying natural habitats and people and animals live in closer proximity. There is some reason to believe that viruses live in permafrost or glaciers. Now is the time to look into investing in preventative measures on a larger scale with hopes of reaping synergetic benefits. We will be faced with problems that we didn’t anticipate; hopefully, this pandemic will lead to changes that makes us better prepared to respond next time.”

“We are in for a long journey with this pandemic,” Sóley believes, “but there are definitely opportunities to learn from this. The modern Western lifestyle has in many respects become unsustainable – demonstrably too demanding for the planet to handle. We have a great opportunity to innovate and promote resource-lighter alternatives and this is the moment to seize that. It might seem restrictive for a while until we get adjusted, but the benefits of better harmony with other creatures and the ecosystem will be manyfold.”

This interview was conducted and edited by María Helga Guðmundsdóttir, Fulbright Program Officer with the Fulbright Commission of Iceland.

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