A headline shared online falsely claims that Iceland has banned COVID-19 vaccines and cites sudden deaths for which there is no evidence, according to the Icelandic national health authority. Iceland has not banned COVID vaccines and “there are no soaring sudden deaths,” Guðrún Aspelund, chief epidemiologist at the Icelandic Directorate of Health, told Reuters in a Nov. 29 email. In 2021, Iceland along with other Scandinavian countries temporarily discontinued giving some COVID vaccines to younger adults. As of Oct. 5, 80.5% of the population (archived) in Iceland has received the primary course, that is two doses of a COVID vaccine. Iceland has not banned COVID vaccines and vaccination is recommended for specific groups of the population.

---

Persons: ” Guðrún Aspelund, epidemiologist, Aspelund, Moderna's Spikevax, Read Organizations: Icelandic Directorate of Health, Reuters, Twitter, Facebook, Health, Iceland’s, Pfizer, BioNTech's, Thomson Locations: Iceland