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.
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