Icelandic President Guðni Th. Jóhannesson set an example yesterday by getting screened for the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, mbl.is reports.

Screening for the virus, done by deCode Genetics, began in Iceland yesterday.

The aim of the screening is to find out how the virus spreads in Icelandic society. There is no need for the people who wish to be screened to have recently arrived from risk areas, or to have been in contact with those who have. People who are in quarantine should not show up for screening.

“What we want to do, in addition to what Landspítali [National University Hospital] has been doing, is to do a sequence analysis of the virus in those who turn out positive. The idea behind that is to find out how the virus is mutating,” deCode CEO Kári Stefánsson explained last week.

The plan is to screen about 1,000 people a day. Fifty employees of deCode are participating in the project. Thousands of people have already signed up for screening.