Coronavirus in Denmark: First do no harm

Let’s look at a different aspect of the situation today. Denmark has done fairly well in managing the coronavirus epidemic. I don’t want to give the impression that everything is going perfectly smoothly, though. It has also made some mistakes in the choice and timing of its emergency measures. But part of its relative success may be attributable to avoiding certain mistakes, for things it has not done.

It could be instructive to consider some things that are not happening in Denmark:

• Bureaucratic delays in starting testing.

• Doctors prohibited from complaining about lack of protective equipment.

• Workers fired for complaining about lack of soap.

• Spring breakers holding coronavirus parties where 20 or 40 get infected.

• Churches holding services in defiance of stay-at-home orders.

• Crowding in subway systems.

• People crowding together to watch the arrival of a hospital ship to treat people who don’t observe social distancing.

• A governor who says that senior citizens can be sacrificed so that businesses can reopen.

• A ban on KN95 masks from China despite shortages.

• States banning abortions during the crisis.

• A boom in gun sales and the prepping and home bunker business.

• A popular news outlet claiming that the virus – no more harmful than the flu – is being used “to score cheap political points.”

• A head of state denying that the virus is a threat and claiming it will disappear “like a miracle”; falsely claiming that anyone who wants a test can get one and that a vaccine will be ready “relatively soon”; defending using an ethnic epithet for the virus despite warnings that it encourages hate crimes; etc. etc. etc. etc.

• Death threats being made against an expert who finally persuaded the head of state that the virus isn’t a hoax.

• And this incident, reported on April 2, not on April Fools Day: An engineer derailed a train and drove it toward US Navel Ship Mercy, a hospital ship that had docked in Los Angeles. He said he thought the ship had “an alternate purpose … related to a government takeover…. People don't know what's going on here. Now they will.”

The head of state’s predecessor got a lot of criticism for his pithy foreign policy slogan – “Don’t do stupid shit.” Maybe it’s not such a bad operating principle in a crisis.