Coronavirus DK: Counting the casualties

“April is the cruelest month,” begins T.S. Eliot’s classic modernist poem The Wasteland, which was written only two or three years after the Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918-19. This year many would agree, not only because of the loss of lives to Covid-19 but also because of the loss of livelihoods and businesses.

Last week the venerable Arnold Busck bookstore chain closed (DK) all of its 29 stores and filed for bankruptcy. Most of the stores have been closed since mid-March, when the lockdown went into effect. Certain locations were allowed to open under special conditions, but it was not enough to save the business, which has not yet received the payments from the government’s rescue package. In any case, the aid would not have been large enough to save the business, which has suffered losses in the past two years because of problems implementing a new IT system. The chain has been a family business since it was founded in 1896.

Cooling their jets

Also last week, SAS announced that it would lay off up to 40 percent of its workforce in Scandinavia. That is the equivalent of 5,000 full-time positions, including 1,700 in Denmark. The government rescue packages allowed the airline to furlough 90 percent of its workers when the lockdown went into effect, and it has received EUR 275 in emergency credit guarantees from Sweden and Denmark. But now it says that it does not expect the industry to return to pre-pandemic activity levels for years and it needs to adjust its staff accordingly.

In a related story, Denmark’s second-largest airport, Billund Airport in Jutland, is almost empty these days. The airport reports that the number of its passengers in April fell a full 99 percent (DK) from the level in 2019. Managing Director Jan Hessellund, says that its fate depends on when the Ministry of Foreign Affairs eases its travel restrictions. Denmark’s borders are closed and all unnecessary travel is discouraged until May 10, when the next phase of the reopening is to begin. The only flights from Billund at present are to Amsterdam and Romania. Air traffic at Copenhagen-Kastrup Airport is down around 95 percent.

Look on the bright side 

In 2020 the number of traffic accidents (DK) in the month of March was the lowest since 1985, when the Danish Road Directorate began compiling records. They fell from 248 in 2019 to 159, and the number of traffic deaths fell from 14 in 2019 to 9. The decline is doubtless an effect of the lockdown, which caused a reduction in the number of passenger cars on the road, says Marianne Foldberg Steffensen of the Road Directorate.

With the sharp decline in air travel and a 25 percent drop in road traffic, carbon dioxide emissions will fall (DK) by about one-sixth in Denmark during the current lockdown period running until May 10. That is the result of calculations made by Brian Vad Mathiesen, Professor of Energy Planning at Aalborg University, for the Danish Broadcasting Corporation. If energy consumption returns to normal afterward, the reduction for the year would amount to 5 percent of the annual level.

The dark side of the bright side

For Vad Mathiesen, however, the main conclusion to be drawn is that it will be extremely difficult for the country to reach its target of reducing emissions by 70 percent by 2030. It would need to cut emissions by a similar amount every year until then, and it cannot afford to shut down commercial activity to the same degree. Climate Minister Dan Jørgensen agrees that meeting the target will be an enormous challenge and it must be accomplished by innovations in energy production and transport rather than simply by reducing consumption.