Coronavirus in Denmark: Testing, testing

Testing facilities are being set up (DK) in Fælledparken, Copenhagen’s largest park. They consist of a large complex of tents with three stations for testing people on foot and one drive-in station. There had been no announcement of this measure before police began erecting the tents, installing electrical cables and water pipes, setting up signs and rerouting traffic. The initiative was ordered by NOST, Denmark’s agency for coordinating activities during crises. It is part of the administration’s new testing policy. The facilities in Fælledparken are a prototype that will be copied afterward in other parts of the country.

Scaling up the data 

On Friday, the administration announced a new, comprehensive testing strategy (DK). As I wrote yesterday, the policy on testing has changed a few times and officials from the Health Authority and the Danish Regions have expressed a desire to test significantly more people than were being tested, at least twice as many. The WHO has urged Denmark to increase its testing. The testing will now include a representative sample of the population. Thus far it has been done mainly on people with severe symptoms. With the new policy, it will also be done on people without symptoms.

According to Allan Randrup Thomsen, Professor of Experimental Virology at University of Copenhagen, this will show the breakdown into people who are sick and hospitalized, people who are sick but not hospitalized, people who have been infected but are not sick, and people who have not been infected. That information will be important for the administration’s decisions on reopening parts of society and the economy. It would have been useful to have that information now, when businesses are resuming activities, as a baseline, said Thomsen.

Virtual solidarity 

Fælledparken is also the place where the largest of the International Workers’ Day gatherings take places on May 1. The Danish Trade Union Confederation recently announced that it was canceling this year’s event because of the danger of infection with the corona virus. The Confederation has now announced that the event will be held after all, by livestream on Facebook (DK). Lizette Risgaard, the chairperson of the Confederation, said that these times make it clear that we should be more attentive to those who have the least and must make greater demands on politicians. The event will last one hour. A number of well-known musicians will perform, and Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has been invited to hold a speech. This will be the 130th year that the gathering has been held in Denmark. The tradition has been broken only once, in 1940, when Germany began the Occupation.

The tents for testing are reminiscent of those that are set up in Fælledparken every year for the DHL Relay Race, which draws thousands of participants. Today, Sunday, April 19, a “virtual race” called “Denmark Runs” (DK) will be held. It is a race that complies with social distancing rules. Participants will not run on the same route. They will each choose their own route, but they will run at the same time, 11:00 a.m. They can register online to run or walk either 5 km, 10 km or 21.1 km (a half-marathon). They are urged to wear the Danish colors, red and white, along with a number tags they can download and pin on their shirts. The event will be livestreamed, so the runners can follow along with others on their phones – as long as they remember to keep one eye on the traffic.