Coronavirus DK: Opinion surveys on risky travel and racism

A survey made by YouGov for the B.T. tabloid shows that a certain number of people are disregarding the travel restrictions (DK) set forth by the government and Health Authority. According to the advisory, before the borders to three countries opened on June 15 Danes were to avoid unnecessary travel and if they did travel, they were to undergo 14 days’ quarantine after they returned. The ban covered neighboring Sweden, where many Danes have summer houses. 

In the survey made on June 5 of 1,255 persons representative of the Danish population, some 4 percent responded that they had traveled abroad in the past month, and of those, 45 percent said that they had not quarantined themselves afterward. If the figures are extrapolated to reflect the entire country, they correspond to 8,400 adults who, after being abroad, returned to their workplace and frequented supermarkets and restaurants without first undergoing quarantine. According to Allan Randrup Thomsen, Professor of Virology at University of Copenhagen, it is very likely that there is a superspreader among that number. “It is thoughtless and inconsiderate that they do not comply with the rules that we are all subject to.”

More tabloid readers will flout advisory

In a separate survey of the newspaper’s 55,000 readers, 11 percent of them said that they intended to take a vacation in a country that the government has forbidden because of the risk of infection. Thomsen warns against the risk of the infection spreading from hotspots where many tourists gather and reminds us that in March relatively few skiing tourists from a small area in northern Italy and Austria were responsible for spreading the virus throughout Western Europe. It is possible that B.T.’s readers are less likely to comply with recommendations than those of some other newspapers, but it is also possible that they are more representative of the Danish population.

Since June 15, people in Denmark may travel to three countries – Germany, Norway and Iceland – without undergoing quarantine afterward. If you travel to other countries, it is not against the law not to quarantine yourself, but your employer may require you to do so. And if an employer forbids employees to travel to other countries beforehand, you can be fired for doing so.

News flash: Danes don’t think they’re racists

Another poll indicated that just over half of Danes do not think that racism is a problem (DK) in Denmark. Some 51 percent answered that they disagreed either completely or to a great degree with the statement that racism is a widespread problem in the country. Some 32 percent agreed completely or to a great degree. The breakdown among various demographic segments was not surprising. A larger percentage of younger respondents, aged 18-29, say it is a problem, as do people who vote for left-wing parties, with the exception of the center-left Social Democrats. A large majority of voters for the other parties do not believe it is a problem. The survey was made after the demonstration against racism and police brutality that was held in Copenhagen on June 7. 

The results do not surprise Mira Skadegaard, a postdoc researcher at the Institute for Culture and Learning at Aalborg University. Most people in Denmark do not experience racism since by definition it is a minority of the population that is subject to discrimination, says Skadegaard. But there is now a greater awareness that racism exists, she continues, and that is positive because previously we have not talked about it much and have been in denial about it.

Racial or ethnic discrimination?

One possible problem with the survey may be that it does not capture opinions about the views on ethnic and religious minorities. Racial minorities in Denmark are very small, and issues involving discrimination have concerned mainly Muslims and immigrants from the Middle East, most of whom are not black.