On Sept. 1, 2020, scientists at deCODE genetics in Iceland, a subsidiary of Amgen, published a study in The New England Journal of Medicine, that showed that antiviral antibodies against SARS-CoV2 do not decline within four months of diagnosis. The aim of the study was to obtain understanding of the nature and durability of the humoral immune response to infection by SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.

The scientists estimated that 0.9% of Icelanders were infected by SARS-CoV-2 and 44% of people infected with SARS-CoV2 in Iceland were not diagnosed with qPCR. The infection fatality rate is 0.3%. Of the 1,797 persons who recovered from SARS-CoV-2 in Iceland, 1,107 (91.1%) were seropositive.