Coronavirus DK: Getting used to micro-outbreaks

As I’ve reported before, even though the COVID-19 epidemic is under control in Denmark and the number of new infections and deaths continue to decline, the danger of the infection spreading is not gone. There have been at least three episodes recently that concern the health authorities and the crisis task force.

Nursing home in remote region

Until last week, northern Jutland was one of the safest places in the country if you wanted to stay out of the way of the coronavirus. But now, in the town of Hjørring, at least 29 residents at a nursing home (DK) and a total of 50 in the municipality have been identified as infected. Two schools and one company have also identified infections. The municipality is working to limit the outbreak. 

All health care staff and nursing home residents in the municipality will be tested, and staff at the nursing home where the outbreak occurred will be tested every week. Visits to the nursing home have been stopped temporarily. The classes with infected pupils have been dismissed for the last few weeks of the school year, and the employees at the company, Novo Nordisk, have been sent home. The municipality has been praised by researchers for its strategy to contain the outbreak. “Hjørring will be a litmus test” for responding to new outbreaks, says Søren Ris Paludan, Professor of Virology at Aarhus University. “The big task ahead of us is to minimize the infection while keeping society open.”

BLM demonstration, as predicted

According to he Danish Patient Safety Authority, which is in charge of contact tracing, at least one person at the Black Lives Matter demonstration (DK) on June 7 has been identified as infected with the coronavirus. Minister of Health Magnus Heunicke has asked everyone who attended, some 15,000 people, to get tested, even if they do not have symptoms. Many people stood very close together, few of them wearing face masks, and it is a classic situation that is vulnerable to superspreaders. The attendees had already been encouraged to be tested, and some have done so. Now all of them are urged to be tested again because the infection sometimes does not manifest itself for several days. There were also smaller demonstrations in other cities in Denmark during the same week.

Import from South Asian hotspot

The Patient Safety Authority reported that six passengers on a flight from Pakistan (DK) to Copenhagen on June 6 were infected. At least four of them were infectious during the flight, and the Authority is in the process of tracing their contacts and all the passengers who sat close to them. Travelers from countries other than Germany, Norway and Iceland are urged to undergo quarantine for 14 days after their arrival. 

“It may be several days from the time a person is infected to the time he or she tests positive, and the person can infect others in that period,” says Anette Lykke Petri of the Authority. The week before, 20 persons of Pakistani ancestry in a single municipality were found to be infected, and since then nine others have been identified. The Authority cannot comment on the possible relation between the passengers and the earlier cases.

We will have to live with these “micro-outbreaks” (DK) for some time, says Paludan, and if we can react quickly and contain them, we won’t need to roll back the reopening. We must still observe social distancing guidelines, he adds, and be especially careful if the infection comes into our proximity.