GREENLAND ELIMINATES THE VIRUS

World’s biggest island has no deaths from COVID-19 as all patients successfully recover.

With 11 coronavirus patients successfully recovered, Greenland has become the first infected place to fully eliminate the virus.

The island, which is a territory of Denmark and has a population of 56,000, reported its first case of COVID-19 on 16 March. The patient lived in the capital, Nuuk.

Greenland adopted the same restrictions as many other places, including limiting domestic travel, discouraging public gatherings and requesting returning citizens to self-isolate for two weeks.

By 9 April, the territory had only 11 confirmed cases, all fully recovered from the virus, making it the first affected territory in the world to eliminate the virus with zero deaths.

This is good news for the territory, which has suffered from deadly epidemics in the past. “A grim history of deadly epidemics brought to Greenland in the 18th and 19th century by European colonisers has fueled fears that the coronavirus, if not checked, will fast reach the many small outlying villages, thereby creating urgent and impossible demands for emergency air transport and intensive care in Greenland’s small hospitals,” wrote EUobserver in a COVID-19 report.