Coronavirus DK: Evaluating the lockdown, testing and PPE

Danish researchers are calling attention to a recent study showing the importance of strict lockdown (DK) measures in preventing coronavirus infections and saving lives. That might seem obvious, but this is the first time that researchers have put specific figures on the effects of the policy. They estimate that lockdowns from April to June saved 285 million people in China from being infected, 49 million in Italy, and 60 million in the USA.

“I don’t think that any human intervention has ever saved so many lives in such a short time,” said the leader of the study, Solimon Hsiang, Professor at the Geopolitics department at University of California. The study, which compares the lockdown periods with the trend in infections in individual countries, indicates that the countries that maintained lockdown conditions until the infection rate declined to a low level succeeded in controlling the virus.

Vindication for Mette

The study provides a justification for the Danish policy of maintaining a relatively strict policy even while the infection numbers were declining steadily. A comparison of a few charts shows that countries such as Denmark and Germany, which waited until the infection rate was low before relaxing restrictions, have flattened the curve, while others that did not introduce restrictions or that lifted them quickly, such as Sweden and the United States, have not yet stopped the spread of the virus.

Attracting test subjects

The government recently decided to suspend testing a representative sample (DK) of the population, and the decision drew criticism from researchers and one of the government’s supporting parties. The testing program began in April, when the government started reopening the economy. The number of people who responded to the invitation to be tested fell steadily in step with the decline in infections, and the sample became so small that researchers decided the program was not worthwhile. Of the most recent group invited to testing, only 12.9 percent reported to the country’s Test Centers.

“It is the cornerstone of the entire testing strategy,” says Peder Hvelplund of the Red-Green Party, “and it is an especially unfortunate time to stop the representative monitoring of the spread of infections.” Jens Lundgren, Professor at Rigshospitalet, agrees: “In the beginning of the epidemic, the problem was that we didn’t discover the spread until it was too late. So it’s a bad idea to relax the practice because the situation is peaceful now.”

The government has now responded that it will resume representative testing (DK) with a modification of the approach. Beginning in August, it will test the same control group as before for both coronavirus and antibodies. “We will thus inconvenience fewer people and kill two birds with one stone,” says Rasmus Horn Langhoff, healthcare spokesperson for the Social Democratic Party. Horn Langhoff believes that more people will respond to the invitation again because it includes an antibody test. “Perhaps we should use mobile units that drive out to people,” says Peder Hvelplund, who criticized the suspension of testing project, “or GPs can be part of the solution.”

Who decided whom to protect first

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Health and Health Minister Magnus Heunicke have come under criticism (DK) for a decision in early March to give priority for protective equipment to the Danish Regions over the municipalities. The Regions administer the public hospitals, and the municipalities administer the nursing homes. The equipment was intended for both the staffs and patients of the institutions.

Jane Heitmann, spokesperson for the elderly of the Liberal Party, says that it was very irresponsible to overlook the most vulnerable segment of the population in the nursing homes. Heitmann wants to know whether it was Heunicke himself who made the decision or officials lower down in the Ministry: “There may be good reasons for the decision. But I think that the elderly and the staffs out in the nursing homes need to know who made the decision and why.”