Coronavirus in Denmark: Glimmer at the middle of the tunnel

Late Monday afternoon, Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen held a press conference (DK) on the status of Denmark’s coronavirus emergency management. Her message seemed fairly simple. It consisted of two main points: the methods that the country has implemented to limit the spread of the virus are working, and therefore the government can begin to consider relaxing the restrictions in place. Very good news, of course, but upon reflection somewhat problematic: mixed, tentative, conditional and debatable.

Frederiksen was flanked by Magnus Heunicke, the Minister for Health, and other officials, who each spoke briefly, echoing her message. She was serious, measured, eloquent especially in addressing the concerns of those who are most threatened by the epidemic and those who have the most trouble enduring the lockdown, and emphatic in urging her fellow citizens to maintain their patience. In short, she was a model of crisis communication and everything that Trump ought to be and is not.

Flattening the curve 
People are generally adhering to the restrictions and following the guidelines for social distancing, she said. The number of infections and particularly the number of deaths are not rising exponentially as they have done in some countries. The notorious curve is flattening. If the trend continues, the Danish hospital system will be able to manage the infections and the need for critical care and respirators. Frederiksen listed the objectives of the policy decisions: to save lives, to maintain the capacity of the health care system, and to preserve the strength of the economy through the crisis. She praised and thanked people for their cooperation and praised Denmark’s “unique social model,” which facilitates such cooperation. 

Frederiksen introduced the second point – “reopening society” – with a strong caveat. “I almost dare not say it. . . . I am anxious about saying it”: If people stick with the program and if the numbers continue to follow the positive trend until April 13, the end of the current lockdown period, then the government can begin to relax restrictions in a “gradual, careful, and controlled” manner. She added immediately that this does not mean that people should begin celebrating and partying. That would be a disaster. She underscored this caution several times: If the numbers begin rising or if people begin gathering in groups and not following social distancing guidelines, the restrictions will not be relaxed; they will become more drastic.

Not the end but only the end of the beginning
Frederiksen compared this next stage to “the second half” of a sporting event. It will still be difficult, and it will be a “strange time” because many people will still be getting sick and dying even while some aspects of society begin functioning in a more normal manner. She emphasized that the reopening will take place very gradually, probably over a period of months, although she did not go into much detail about what would be permitted first. There could be staggered schedules for schools, for example, to reduce the size of groups. The process would be dependent on people’s behavior, the ongoing capacity of the hospital system, and an increase in testing, including testing of those who have recovered from the illness and are therefore presumably immune. Other speakers addressed the more technical medical issues, and Police Chief Thorkild Fogde concluded by thanking people for their cooperation but warning that, if necessary, they would not hesitate to issue fines to people who disregard the prohibitions on gathering and pose a threat of spreading the infection.

The main question that the press conference prompts is why the government should begin talking about easing restrictions at all if it is not possible for at least two weeks, which is a long time at an early stage of an epidemic. The risk that people will become less vigilant is not insignificant. The suspicion is that the administration did it as a concession to the private sector. The right-wing parties had asked for some signal about reopening the economy, and large companies and industry groups want to know what they can expect. As in the US, a segment of the population is concerned that the damage to the economy of an extended shutdown may be greater than necessary and bring on a sustained recession.

A tightrope act
On the other hand, some scenarios for a reopening, for example the American Enterprise Institute’s, recommend waiting for a period for 14 days of declining illness figures before relaxing restrictions. The figures in Denmark haven’t begun declining yet, so there is barely time for that to happen before April 13. Presumably the epidemic in Denmark would have begun to decline by that time, or at least the administration would wait to begin the reopening until after they have declined somewhat.

Altogether, Frederiksen gave the impression of a firm but fair schoolmarm telling her pupils that if they sit still and concentrate a little while longer, they can soon go out for recess. To put an optimistic spin on the announcement, the administration may feel that the conditional promise of an end to isolation will encourage people to maintain their discipline. That is, along with the signs of progress in fighting the epidemic, it will increase their willingness to endure the restrictive measures and thus further curtail the spread of the virus. As a tactic, the announcement assumes a few things that cannot be taken for granted in every country: that citizens act like rational adults, that if necessary they sacrifice personal or short-term advantage for the common good, and that they generally trust the government to act in the people’s best interest.

Coronavirus in Denmark: Cabin fever

Saturday afternoon Danmarks Radio brought an article (DK) based on interviews with two researchers who  believe the emergency measures implemented in Denmark are working and limiting the spread of the coronavirus. Anders Koch from Statens Serum Institut and Lone Simonsen from Roskilde University both see the figures on the number of infections and deaths rising steadily but not accelerating. They believe that the social distancing and other measures that the government has ordered have had a positive effect. They are cautious in expecting that Denmark will not see the same explosion of cases that has occurred in southern Europe and do not think that the hospitals in Denmark will be overwhelmed. While they caution that Denmark is still in an early stage of the epidemic, they think it is possible that the country could begin to loosen up the restrictions after the end of the current lockdown period, which runs until April 13.

In a Facebook post (DK), Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen wrote that she does not expect the country to be closed for months. She said the data on the effect of the lockdown may be significant within a few days and the country may be able to begin to open up soon. She warned that some countries have seen a relapse after they had thought they had made progress, and she urged people to remain patient.

Coping with idleness
In other developments, since the lockdown the number of referrals on the Health Ministry’s Alcohol Line website (DK) has run at an order of magnitude higher than usual. The Alcohol Line offers free counseling for people who are worried about their drinking, and its website offers an online self-test. Ten times as many people than the normal level have taken the test since the bars and restaurants closed. A few factors may be contributing to the rise, say the counseling staff. People usually drink more when they are off work, and many have been sent home from work. Most of the opportunities for face-to-face therapy and counseling are closed. There is anxiety about the epidemic and economic prospects and stress from being cooped up with children who cannot go to school or day-care centers. People still have the option of counseling by telephone or videoconferencing.

On a related subject, the police note that the border closing affects the drug and narcotics trade (DK). If it’s harder for smugglers to get their products into the country, prices will rise and quality will fall, causing problems for users and presumably increasing crime. Much of the cannabis trade in Copenhagen has taken place in Christiania, the semi-autonomous “Freetown” where squatters settled in old military barracks in the 1970s. It was closed to tourists and nonresidents in the general lockdown, and some dealers have migrated to nearby side streets, even setting up temporary booths of the kind found on Christiania’s famous Pusher Street. Cannabis is still illegal in Denmark except for a trial medical marijuana program.

Survival strategies
Another aspect of life under quarantine: shaming for noncompliance (DK). While people are asked to keep to themselves except for shopping for necessities, they are also advised to take a walk and get some sun. If too many choose the same park, the need to pass by one another can bring them in close proximity and they may find themselves upbraided with a “Keep your distance!” Researchers note that there are good evolutionary reasons for such “hypermoralizing” and it is effective, especially if it comes from someone in a higher risk group, such as an elderly person. People will tend to conform to the majority attitude in order to avoid shaming if not to follow the prescribed behavior for health reasons alone.

Early Sunday morning, police stopped a car in Aarhus, Denmark’s second-largest city. A passenger got out, yelled “Corona!”, and coughed (DK) in the faces of two officers. He was arrested for that. After his appearance in court, he escaped from custody and is now the object of a “massive” search by the already overburdened police force.

A DIY world 
Keen observers noted that Søren Bostrøm, the Director General of the Danish Health Authority, who has appeared in press conferences lately, got a haircut. How could that be, when barbershops and salons are supposed to be closed? He tweeted (DK) that he did it himself with a clipper, that’s why it’s uneven on the neck, adding that he sent the usual payment to his barber and closing with hashtag #støtdinfrisør (supportyourhairdresser). This seems to have bolstered his rockstar status on the crisis management team.

Coronavirus in Denmark: Pushback

In responding to the coronavirus threat, the Social Democratic administration under Mette Frederiksen has taken the position that it is better to do too much than too little. As in the United States, some people are beginning to ask when the emergency measures will end. Others are protesting that certain measure are too drastic.

On Thursday, the government submitted a new emergency bill to Parliament increasing sanctions for certain crimes and making it easier for the police to break up gatherings. The crimes include making fraudulent claims to emergency funds and stealing hand sanitizer. The chairman of the Association of Danish Judges, Mikael Sjöberg, sent a letter (DK) to Justice Minister Nick Hækkerup criticizing some of the measures, such as a prison sentence for theft of hand sanitizer. Besides being extremely harsh, the punishment would be problematic because the cases probably wouldn’t be processed until after the epidemic has passed its peak.

Busted for having neighbors over for coffee?
The bill would reduce the maximum number of people, besides family and cohabitants, allowed to congregate from 10 to 2, and give the police authority to issue fines (DK) for violations. The immediate intention seems to be to prevent the annual tradition of large Easter parties, which often draw family members from across the country. This has drawn a protest from the right-of-center political parties (DK), which believe the limit is too strict, it is not necessary for public health reasons, and it violates a basic freedom of association. 

The same parties, with the addition of the Social Liberals that gives them a parliamentary majority, are now asking for a plan to end the emergency measures (DK). Jakob Ellemann-Jensen, the chairman of the Liberal Party, the largest opposition party, acknowledges that the government has handled the crisis well, but thinks a plan for opening up society again is also necessary. It will make a psychological difference for the population and will give the private sector a sense of security. The Minister of Finance responded by saying that reopening society is conditional on limiting the spread of the virus. 

The Danish Patient Safety Authority, an agency under the Ministry of Health, placed a link on its website for people to report a suspicion of behavior indicating an infection. The step sparked a protest. Health Minister Magnus Heunicke had apparently been unaware of the measure. He stated that the agency had been urged to do whatever it could to prevent the spread of the virus, but it had gone too far. The link was removed. 

What are the results?
But are the measures working? Have they been in effect long enough to draw any conclusions? These are latest figures (DK):

Infected: 2,010
Hospitalized: 430
ICU: 109
Deaths: 52

The number of deaths per day is not rising exponentially. This is the series since the first one on March 11: 1,0,0,2,1,1,1,4,6,3,3,3,7,5,7,8. 

A log chart comparing developments (DK) in various countries shows that Denmark, at 15 days after the first death, is much closer to the pattern in South Korea than Italy or Spain were at the same stage, that is, much flatter. Statens Serum Institut continues to cite its forecast based on the infection rate in Italy, which predicts a peak in the two weeks after Easter that will require all the respirators in the country – some 950. But a spokesperson notes that this forecast does not take into account the mitigating measures implemented in Denmark. The R0 rate used in the forecast is 2.6, and the rate observed in Denmark is 2.1, so the infection curve should be flatter than in those countries. 

To isolate or not to isolate?
So it appears that the measures are working and the Danes should sacrifice their cozy Easter parties this year in order to keep a lid on the spread. Some observers are warning that governments that enact emergency measures may abuse them and exploit them after the emergency passes, as Anne Applebaum does about Hungary, for example. One would also expect that Trump, even though he wants to end social distancing, might try to use the crisis as a pretext for arrogating to himself dictatorial powers. But I don’t see the danger in northern European countries governed by parliamentary coalitions. 

Some of the more sensible and promising proposals that seem to be emerging from researchers, for example the scenario explored by Paul Romer, advocate pulling back from total quarantine to testing much more frequently and quarantining people who are infected rather than everyone, while producing, distributing and using personal protection equipment much more widely. Some kind of compromise like this will probably emerge, but while the horror stories are proliferating in Italy, Spain and now New York City, I don’t see how countries that are still trying to flatten the curve can be too cautious.

Coronavirus update: Useful links

General

Johns Hopkins global cases dashboard

Johns Hopkins daily newsletter: Sign-up form

LessWrong Corona Info-Database

Good Judgment Superforecaster ® Analytics - COVID

European Center for Disease Prevention and Control

Coronavirus newsfeed

Tomas Pueyo: Coronavirus: The hammer and the dance (March 19)

Tomas Pueyo: Coronavirus: Why You Must Act Now (March 10,updated March 19)

Visual Capitalist: History of pandemics

3Blue1Brown: Primer on exponential growth and epidemics

COVID-19 forecasting, Future of Humanity Institute, Oxford

Key Economic Facts About COVID-19, Becker Friedman Institute, U. of Chicago



Denmark (DK)

Coronavirus.dk

Danmarks Radio coronavirus update

Latest coronavirus figures for Denmark and the world, TV2


Several links via the Marginal Revolution blog, by Tyler Cowen and Alex Tabarrok. 

Update on Coronavirus times in Denmark 2

It is 10 days into the Danish government’s two-week closure of schools and other public institutions. Yesterday, Monday, 23 March, the government extended the closures until after Easter – 13 April. Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen held a press conference (DK) urging people again to remain at home except for necessary errands and walks in the sun and to keep a distance from others. Everything is to remain closed except markets and pharmacies. That includes restaurants, bars and small businesses. Gatherings of more than 10 people are not permitted. Frederiksen warned people especially not to travel abroad, not to visit their summerhouses, and not to hold the usual Easter gatherings. She recommended using other forms of communication such as Facetime. Easter is the biggest family holiday in Denmark after Christmas. People often travel across the country to gather with their families. The extension of the closures was expected, since the results of the initial lockdown are not yet known. The rates of infection and death are relatively high, as in other European countries, but they are not exploding, as in Italy and Spain. 

The official figures (DK) (as of 12:00 pm, 22 March) are now 12,843 tested, 1,450 infected, 254 hospitalized, 55 in ICU, and 24 dead. The number of deaths has not been rising exponentially. It has held steady at 3-5 per day.

The Ministry of Health had not been testing everyone who reported symptoms. Since 12 March, people with mild symptoms were told to consult their GPs and unless their GP recommended testing, they were to self-quarantine for up to 14 days. Now, according to the recommendations of the WHO, people in specific risk groups with moderate symptoms are being tested more aggressively – the elderly, people with chronic illness, healthcare personnel, pregnant women and newborns. In another new development, Statens Serum Institut is looking into obtaining data on people’s physical movements from mobile telephony providers. 

Economic aid package
A story on the economic measures appeared in The Atlantic on 21 March. The piece is based on an interview with Flemming Larsen, a professor at the Center for Labor Market Research at Aalborg University, It describes the package as putting the economy in a deep freeze for three months. At companies that would have needed to lay off 30 percent of their workforce or 50 people, the government will pay 75 percent of their salaries for three months in order to maintain their positions in the company. The government is also compensating companies for fixed expenses, guaranteeing 70 percent bank loans to companies, exempting people on unemployment from job-seeking and activation schemes, and postponing corporate tax payments. The total cost is DKK 287 billion, or 13 percent of GDP, the equivalent of $2.5 trillion in the US. As Larsen explains, what is remarkable about the measures, aside from the size of the intervention, is that they were arranged in only a few days and received the unanimous endorsement of all ten parliamentary parties. Additional aid packages are being prepared for contract workers and the self-employed.

Health Authority’s forecast
On 22 March, the Health Authority released a prognosis on the development of the epidemic (DK) in Denmark in relation to hospitals’ capacity for treatment. It predicts that the epidemic will last about three months and peak halfway through, after Easter. It bases the forecast on data from China and Italy. The estimates are that, of a population of 5.8 million, 10 percent will be infected, 10 percent of those infected will need treatment, 20 percent of those, or about 11,000, will need hospitalization, and about 3,000 with need intensive treatment. The critical measure is that Denmark has a total capacity of 925 respirators and, according to Chinese and Italian data, the peak need for respirators, in the fifth and sixth weeks of the epidemic, will be 830 to 990, roughly equal to the number of respirators available. Offhand, in contrast to the reports of doctors making terrible choices about whom to treat in Italy, Iran and now Spain, that appears to be encouraging news.

It is possible to make such precise predictions because Denmark is a small country with a centralized healthcare system. It is easier to gather data on infections and treatment and also easier to get a sense of people’s behavior and their compliance with emergency orders and guidelines. And most important, the government has taken the epidemic seriously, has reacted promptly, has been transparent in its communications, and people seem to being complying with the emergency measures.

Update on Coronavirus times in Denmark

It is one week into the Danish government’s first two-week closure of schools and other public institutions. Since then the closures have been expanded, in a press conference Tuesday evening, to cover virtually all businesses except for markets, pharmacies and other outlets for daily staples. That is, they are closed to consumers; restaurants may stay open only to provide takeout. Gatherings of more than ten people are banned. The borders have been closed. The government announced a plan agreed upon by the largest confederation of employers and trade unions to provide compensation for people who are laid off or not allowed to work. On Wednesday evening, Queen Margrethe also held a short speech (DK), the first by a Danish monarch on an occasion other than the tradition of New Year’s Eve in several decades. Her message, in her unfailingly correct diction, was basically, Stay the fuck home!

The official figures (DK) (as of 5:00 pm, 17 March) are now 7,584 tested, 1,057 infected, and 4 dead. Officials warn that the number infected may be much higher because most people who call their doctors and the hotline with symptoms are not automatically tested; they are first only advised to self-quarantine at home. Statens Serum Institut under the Ministry of Health reported that 176 persons had been hospitalized, that average age of those infected is 58, and two-thirds of the infected are men. The explanation for the latter figure is that several groups of men had returned from ski vacations in Austria. In the beginning, the most infections came from people returning from ski vacations in northern Italy. Yesterday, Denmark ranked seventh in infections per capita.

Lockdown intact
The large majority of people seem to be cooperating. People are encouraged to take walks but to keep their distance from others and avoid congregating in groups. Many are staying home; they are keeping children away from grandparents. There are fewer people on the streets. There are signs by the cashiers in shops reminding people to keep their distance from one another. They pass one another on the sidewalk rather warily, veering slightly away and perhaps covering their mouths. A delivery man with a package yesterday apologized for ringing my doorbell. There is certainly an advantage in being a small country with centralized public authorities and communications channels. And another advantage in being a culture with a tradition of conformism and high trust in authority. People are more likely to have confidence in government officials, to follow directions, and to behave in such a way as to maximize the public good.

Not everyone observes the guidelines, of course. The worst offenders, naturally, are the young, who may not feel as threatened personally or care so much about the risks. Some had continued to go to clubs and meet their friends on the street or in the parks. They were one of the main reasons for the latest closures and the queen’s extraordinary intervention. They must be reminded that they may be asymptomatic carriers who put others at risk. The queen’s video went viral on Instagram and elsewhere. 

Here are some of the developments from the past 24 hours:

• The traditional International Workers Day gathering on 1 May in Copenhagen’s largest park was cancelled.
• The number of passengers on commuter trains has fallen by 80 percent. Fewer commuter trains are running because the staff has been reduced. 
• Restaurants that previously had not offered takeout are given permission to do so without going through the normal registration process. 
• The number of community infections in Denmark (308) exceeded the number of infections from a foreign country (Austria, 297) for the first time.
• Sweden, Denmark’s closest neighbor along with Germany, is the only country in the region that has not closed its borders, schools and other public institutions. The head of the Swedish state’s epidemiology agency stated that the closures may increase the spread of the virus. He was interviewed by Danmarks Radio in Swedish Health Authority’s cafeteria, which is still serving a buffet. 
• The head of the Health Authority, Søren Brostrøm, says that he doubts that schools will reopen after the tentative two-week closure. Parliament is preparing a bill allowing the cancelation of final exams in schools and high schools.
• Prisons have been closed for temporary releases and visits, except for lawyers and clergypersons.
• Hospitals banned visits except for those to patients who are critically ill and children. 
• Greenland had been one of the last places in the West to see an infection. A second one was identified yesterday in Nuuk, the capital, and widespread closures were put into effect.
• The government proposed a second initiative to provide compensation to people who lose income, this one aimed at the small businesses and the self-employed.
• The government is assisting in efforts to bring home Danes who are stranded abroad. There are a few thousand in Morocco, the Philippines, and a few other places. They are encouraged to return to Denmark immediately because possibilities for air travel may become limited. When they do return, they are to be quarantined for 14 days.
• The Health Authority sent new posters and brochures to shops and supermarkets. In some cases, the police have needed to enforce shop closures. Shopping malls may stay open if they have supermarkets in them, and some are using security guards to prevent young people from hanging out.
• Churches are closed for services. Baptisms, weddings and confirmations are postponed. Burials and memorial services take place in “alternative forms.”
• Denmark’s basketball league has cancelled the rest of its season.
• While most companies are reducing their staff, food delivery services are hiring. 

Deity AWOL
On the lighter side, at least to me, was the tweetstorm (DK) wondering that the queen did not conclude her speech with “God preserve Denmark,” as she does every New Year’s Eve. It seemed so wrong to many, especially now, when we need much more help than when we’re going out to get drunk and see fireworks. Was it deliberate? Was it because Denmark is lost? Was it because after she’d urged everyone to pitch in it would imply that we should just rely on God’s mercy? Did she and her speechwriters simply forget? The royal family’s communications office didn’t return journalists’ inquiries.

Extra: Denmark’s response to the new coronavirus

In Denmark as in the rest of the world, the spread of the new coronavirus and Covid-19 has overwhelmed all the other news. The country has had the fastest growing number of infections in Europe this week. According to the latest tally (at 10:00 am on Friday), there were 785 infections out of nearly 4,000 tested, 10 hospitalized, 2 in critical condition, and no deaths. On Wednesday evening, the government issued a lockdown order. The government’s response and the measures called for seem timely and comprehensive, and the public, for the most part, seems to be cooperating with them. They are worth considering in countries that are still reluctant to implement drastic measures or that have a head of state who pretends it’s all a hoax. Here is a summary.

• People who are ill or suspect that they may be infected are instructed not to go to a hospital but rather to call their own GP or a central hotline and to follow directions for home quarantine for 14 days.

• Guidelines for preventing infection are posted widely and repeated often: Wash your hands, don’t share hands, use sanitizer, cough into your sleeve, practice “social distancing,” etc.

• The same goes for guidelines for limiting the use of public transport: Don’t use it if you feel ill, walk or bicycle when possible, avoid rush hour, use sanitizer after touching surfaces. Reservations are required on regional trains.

• Foreign travel restrictions are expanded to cover additional high-risk countries on an ongoing basis.

• Public day care facilities, schools and universities are closed for two weeks. Private schools are urged to close as well.

• Public cultural institutions, libraries, etc. are closed for two weeks. Private institutions are urged to close as well.

• Civil servants who don’t perform critical functions are sent home. If they cannot work from home, they will continue to receive their pay.

• Private sector employers are urged to let employees work at home or take leave and to hold physical meetings only when necessary. 

• Large restaurants, fitness centers, movie theaters, recreational clubs, churches and evening schools are urged to suspend activities, and most seem to have done so.

• The unemployed are excused from regular meetings at job centers and activation and will continue to receive benefits.

• Hospitals and nursing homes are urged to restrict visits.

• A website (DK) has been set up with comprehensive information about the status of the virus in Denmark, including a hotline, precautionary measures for various types of people and organizations, procedures for reporting illness, travel restrictions, a summary in English, and much more. The Danish Broadcasting Corporation Denmark’s Radio publishes extensive information (DK) on developments in the management of the crisis, as do local English-language publications, and many news outlets are suspending their paywalls for these pages.

On Thursday, Parliament passed an emergency bill (DK) that allows healthcare authorities to require examination, treatment and quarantine for people they suspect are infected. This goes so far as allowing entry into private homes to implement the procedures indicated. The Ministers of Health and Justice are authorized to set forth guidelines for the police to implement the measures in the bill. These including banning access to public institutions, supermarkets, shops, public nursing homes and hospitals as well as placing restrictions on the use of public transport and banning events in which more than 100 people congregate. The latter applies to Parliament as well. The number of MPs present will be limited to 95, with proportional representation of the various parties. The bill passed unanimously, with the MPs standing to indicate their vote rather than pressing a button on their desks.

Living in a state of emergency
This doesn’t mean that everything is going smoothly. Despite warnings by health officials and supermarket chains, there are widespread reports of hoarding of groceries and household supplies, with customers occasionally fighting over the last items available. Hand sanitizer and masks sell out quickly whenever a new delivery arrives. Yeast, for baking, is in special demand. For medication that is in great demand, pharmacies are instructed to sell only one package per customer. You see people on the sidewalk carrying jumbo packages of toilet paper. 

I am told by some acquaintances that many are forgetting the country’s supposed tradition of “solidarity” and are panicking and acting selfishly. There are isolated reports of people who have been diagnosed as infected violating quarantine. Some others downplay the risk and are annoyed at the inconvenience. But on the whole, people appear to appreciate the government’s thoroughgoing intervention and to be cooperating with the restrictions. The pandemic would come under control sooner if other countries addressed it in a similar way.

Has Denmark been knocked out of the Democratic debates?

With Joe Biden’s primary win in Michigan and most of the other Super Tuesday II states, I thought it might be time to retire Denmark from the presidential election debates. Sanders has continued to compare his “democratic socialism” to the Danish and other Scandinavian social democracies, but voters in the more populous states after the Nevada caucuses, with some nudging by the Democratic National Committee, have mostly said No thanks. It is unclear whether they did so because they reject Sanders’s platform, they don’t believe it’s feasible, or any number of other reasons – they find Sanders ideologically rigid or less electable than Biden. Sanders still has a substantial following and could draw out the primary contest, but it looks like his socialist revolution will have to wait until a future election cycle.

So it is curious that also on Super Tuesday II, Thomas Friedman wrote in the New York Times that it is Biden who “is the true Scandinavian.” Sanders, with his hostility toward free markets and other features of a liberal democracy, writes Friedman, “probably couldn’t get elected to a municipal council in Denmark today.” That’s an exaggeration. He could be elected to Copenhagen’s city council, which is notoriously “red.” In 2017, the far-left Red-Green Alliance won 18% of the vote, more than any other party except the center-left Social Democrats, enough to enable them to pursue their vendetta against automobiles, for example. But Copenhagen is an exception, and Friedman’s point generally holds: Sanders would belong to a fringe movement in Denmark. The country wouldn’t vote for nationalizing the transport and the energy industries. Of course, many of Sanders’s signature proposals already exist in Denmark, so the comparison isn’t clear-cut.

(If some think I should therefore disown the subtitle of this blog, with its reference to a “socialist monarchy,” my excuse is that it was a provocative exaggeration intended to draw a stark contrast. I do confess, however, to being mistaken in an early post in 2016, when I assumed too easily that Sanders was really a social democrat and not a dogmatic socialist.)

Utopia or the best of both worlds?
But what, according to Friedman’s thinking, is the stealth Scandinavian program that Biden may not even know he is a proponent of? Friedman gives a good summary of the welfare state services and benefits that Sanders admires, the heavy taxes that they require, and other features crucial to Denmark’s prosperity that Sanders ignores or overlooks. The most important of the latter is a free market economy that is open to entrepreneurship and globalization. There is little of Sanders’s demonization of corporations and billionaires. Proponents of a planned economy of the type Sanders’s favors are a small minority that has been held in check in recent years by alternating center-left and center-right administrations.

The second aspect that Friedman highlights is the “high-trust social compact among [Denmark’s] business community, labor unions, social entrepreneurs and government.” His point is that such cooperation is impossible if you accept Sanders’s premise that capitalism is essentially evil and its success stories are owing to greed and corruption. The wages of around two-thirds of the Danish labor force are governed by agreements between employers’ associations and labor unions. Friedman recalls a meeting of the Danish “Disruption Council” that he attended. He watched “corporate leaders, national union leaders, educators, social entrepreneurs and cabinet ministers” brainstorming respectfully and understanding the need to compromise for the sake of greater good.

Viking Joe the mediator
It is less clear how Biden fits into the Scandinavian model. He obviously has a much more modest approach to reform than Sanders and would pursue an expansion of the social safety net incrementally. He has a broader ideological and demographic appeal, to no small degree because he is more pragmatic and less ideological than Sanders. Any prospect of reducing wealth inequality and poverty or job and healthcare insecurity depends on reducing the polarization and gridlock in Congress, and Biden, as a moderate with a more collegial history and relations with Senate Republicans, is eminently better qualified than Sanders to forge a basis for cooperation – assuming that Republican congresspeople would return at least partially to their senses after the departure of the evil wizard who has bewitched them. 

Biden’s critics on the left will point out that you can’t be a senator from Delaware for many years without being a good friend to corporations, a very good friend, as they might put it (the same people who would say that Friedman is a good friend to neoliberalism). One curious feature of Danish parliamentary politics is that on a few occasions in recent years, the left-wing administration has enacted conservative measures that the preceding right-wing administration did not even attempt, and vice versa. If the parties had held strictly to their ideological profiles, they would have encountered resistance from the other side. Although there has been a gradual drift toward the right that dismays a significant segment of the electorate, there is much to be said for the increased efficacy of policies based on consensus-seeking. Biden has a better chance of achieving that than any of the other candidates.

Replacing the Danes

Denmark’s immigrant population has increased only slightly since the wave of refugees and migrants came up into Europe in 2015. Yet in certain quarters, the number appears to be rising at an alarming rate. In an op-ed column in Jyllands-Posten entitled “Everyday jihad is a result of the increasing demographic replacement” (DK), Pia Kjærsgaard, the founder of the Danish People’s Party, wrote that Denmark’s survival as a homogeneous nation was being threatened. The reason for her concern was that she read that the non-Western population in the country was some 400,000 larger than the official figure from Statistics Denmark.

In Information, another Danish daily, Serge Savin looked into the figures (DK) and found the situation different than Kjærsgaard implied in more than one way. The figure that Kjærsgaard referred to  derives from a book, Integration – her går det godt (Integration: It’s going well here), by Hjarn von Zernichow Borberg, external associate professor at the University of Copenhagen’s Economic Institute. Statistics Denmark had registered 800,000 immigrants and their descendants, and von Zernichow Borberg first listed 1.2 million and then revised it down to 1.1 million.

Fun with math
So the difference in the two figures is really 300,000 and not 400,000. The reason for the difference, von Zernichow Borberg explains, is that Statistics Denmark counts only children with two foreign parents and he added children with a single foreign parent. But those parents are not all from non-Western countries; they are foreigners from the entire world. He estimates that around 100,000 are from non-Western countries. Furthermore, von Zernichow Borberg continues, Kjærsgaard implies that the threat to Danish culture comes from increasing Muslim influence, and not all of these parents from non-Western countries are from predominately Muslim countries. They may be from China or Ukraine. The estimate of additional children with a parent from a Muslim country is 25,000. Here are current figures from Statistics Denmark.

The more accurate figure for the additional, at least partially Muslim population above the official figure is thus around one-sixteenth of the number that Kjærsgaard cites. As Savin notes, the demographic replacement theory has a long racist history. It got a strong boost from Renaud Camus’s Le grand remplacement in 2012 and figured in various right-wing extremist and white supremacist terrorist actions such as those in Utoya and Christchurch. In the US, it burst into prominence in the chant, “The Jews will not replace us,” in the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville in 2017. Kjærsgaard did not wish to comment on the Information article, but another member of the Danish People’s Party, Martin Henriksen, found no reason to avoid the term “replacement” because it was “the best way to get the message out.”

Concept creep: The better it gets, the worse it seems
The surprising thing about such alarmism coming at this moment is that integration seems to be working in Denmark much better than it had before. And that is owing to some degree to the many restrictive measures that the preceding center-right administration implemented, partly at the urging of the Danish People’s Party. The country suspended participation in the UN quota refugee system and discouraged migrants. The new Social Democratic administration thus far has softened those restrictions only slightly. It is coming under some pressure from its supporting left-wing parties to do more, though, and perhaps that is what Kjærsgaard and her allies want to discourage. The further irony, noted by von Zernichow Borberg, is that the additional number of children should be viewed as a positive sign. Muslim immigrants have been criticized for maintaining a separate, “parallel society,” and intermarriage is clearly a step toward integration.