Coronavirus DK: Making Christmas safe for grandparents

Yesterday the Danish government held a press conference to announce new restrictions (DK) because of the persistently high level of infections in the Greater Copenhagen region. The pandemic is not accelerating significantly, and the hospitals are not filling. But in past the month infections have remained much higher than in the spring, and they hit a record number yesterday (DK), at 1,468.

Minister of Health Magnus Heunicke, along with several other officials, presented the new measures, which take effect on December 7. The restrictions apply to 17 municipalities, which on average have a higher incidence of infection and higher positive test rate than the rest of the country. Heunicke explained that the restrictions are necessary because the pandemic is expected to spread more easily during the winter months and people are also more likely to gather during the holidays. He acknowledged that people are tired of pandemic and the restrictions but urged everyone to comply during the coming month because of the prospect of vaccine becoming available early in next year.

Invitation to all-inclusive staycation © Grafik: Mads Peter Ogstrup Nielsen

Talking about you, young people
Heunicke focused on measures to contain the spread of the virus among students and young adults. The most striking trend in infection statistics in the past few weeks has been a disproportionate number of cases in the 10-19 and 20-29 age groups. This reflects the facts that young people circulate more widely and may be less concerned about the virus than older people because they experience milder symptoms and recover more easily. But Heunicke cautioned that even if they are not threatened as seriously, they still pose a risk to others, particularly during the holidays when families gather across generations. He issued what amounted to a plea to this group to moderate their behavior until the vaccine can be dispensed.

The main initiative in the new measures is therefore a campaign, beginning today, to test everyone from 15 to 25 in the metropolitan region before Christmas. That is around 200,000 young people. There will be mobile units visiting schools and universities as well as additional testing capacity at existing test centers. The tracing staff will be increased, and there will be better conditions at isolation facilities, including meals free of charge. Other measures include limitations on contact for schoolchildren in classrooms and a maximum of 10 in sports and other after-school activities.

Work at home, shop alone, party next year
Workplaces and higher educational institutions are urged to conduct activities online. Large retail outlets and shopping centers are to monitor customer traffic and allow more space per customer, and people are urged to do their Christmas shopping alone. There are selective restrictions and bans on visiting nursing homes that have seen outbreaks. People are urged generally to see as few others as possible, with a maximum of 10 at both private and public gatherings. 

Heunicke and the other officials noted that the situation in Denmark is not as dire and the new measures are not as strict as in several other European countries, but the country has recently had to deal with outbreaks at mink farms and in the western suburbs and it must remain vigilant. The main purpose of effort is to avert a surge of infections that could take place after people travel and gather for holiday shopping and gatherings.

'Tis the season to be jolly

The first of December kicks off the Christmas season in Denmark. Christmas is big here, not only because it’s an overwhelmingly Christian country – it’s also one of the most unreligious societies you can find. Also because it’s very dark in the winter – up to 17 hours a day. Families and schoolchildren gather indoors to make decorations and ply other time-tested customs. Companies hold their annual, sometimes a bit profligate parties. The country leads the Western world in candle consumption by a sizeable margin. When you’re biking home during rush hour in the chilly, drizzling rain, the sight of flickering flames in the window reassures you of a cozy haven awaiting with seasonal delicacies and uplifting music.

Truth in food labeling
This strong tradition also leads certain people to defend its sanctity against possible incursions and slights. Thus the criticism that some supermarkets received (DK) from politicians and other cultural watchdogs for advertising items such as “vinterboller” (winter buns) and “vintermedister” (winter sausage). The critics, mostly on Facebook, the leading local forum for debating social and moral issues, assumed that these concoctions had replaced the traditional “juleboller” and “julemedister” (Christmas buns and sausage), presumably to placate the Muslim population that might feel excluded from such majoritarian observances. 

The supermarkets were quick to correct that misapprehension. They had been wise enough not to drop the Christmas versions of those goods from the inventory. They had merely added an alternative secular variant. More enlightened commentators and media outlets criticized in turn the traditionalists’ alarm at a nonexistent problem while much more urgent issues such as climate change demanded their attention.

A-caroling we go
Lest anyone think that Denmark’s progressive tendencies have kept it on the straight and narrow politically correct path, however, another incident last week raised a slew of eyebrows and hackles. Bertel Haarder, a former cabinet secretary from the Liberal Party (the center-right mainstream party) and the longest-serving member of Parliament, continued his own Christmas tradition of presenting his colleagues with a humorous homemade song (DK). All in good fun until the last of the eight verses: 

A much different hetero is the Hedeager boy:
One wasn’t enough, he wanted two in the mayor’s bed!
He went after them both and grabbed a little too much!
He thought that the Red-Green Party was common property!
BUT why should they be so strict 
And prevent Red-Green sex.
Let him take a lovely witch 
Home for Christmas!

(my literal translation, sans rhymes)

This rousing finale refers to an event from earlier in the year for which a former member of the Red-Green Party board was convicted of raping (DK) a woman at a gathering in the home of Ninna Hedeager Olsen, Copenhagen’s Deputy Mayor for Technology and the Environment. The victim was judged to have been defenseless because of sleep and alcohol, and the man was also found by the court to have groped the mayor at the same time. The small Red-Green Party (Enhedslisten, a.k.a. the Unity Party) is the furthest to the left in Danish politics. It has advocated the nationalization of private enterprise and other collectivist measures. Multicultural Copenhagen is its prime stronghold, and environmentalism is its strongest position. 

No sense of decency?
Outrage ensued across almost the entire political spectrum. WTF was he thinking – joking about rape and referring to the victim as property and a witch to boot! It sounded like he even approved of the assault. Haarder had a single supporter in the parliamentarians’ email thread (DK), from the Danish People’s Party’s, the most strident proponents of Danish family values (“Get with the Christmas spirit!”). Haarder made a rather mild apology saying that he was sorry if anyone was hurt by the verse and he had never intended to condone or make fun of rape. A party spokesperson reiterated his disavowal of any disrespectful intentions. 

The 75-year-old Haarder has often extolled Christianity and traditional cultural values and played the moral watchdog himself. That an intelligent, well-educated, respected high officeholder could be so tone-deaf (while being a prosodic craftsperson) to the growing sentiment about rape culture tells us something about this country. It has seen the arrival of identity and diversity politics, but it is not yet under great pressure to conform to intersectional ideology. It’s nevertheless surprising that none of Haarder’s aides forwarded him the #metoo memo. His freewheeling boorishness prompts a comparison to the U.S. Troll in Chief, who has done more than anyone else to lower the standards of decorum for the highest ranking officials. Few others have achieved the cultish devotion that grants him virtual immunity, however.

Poetic licentiousness
It’s unlikely that Haarder was influenced by Trump, though. He’s been cranking out these songs since Trump started playing with his daddy’s money in New York real estate market. He just got carried away with his composition. He was thinking as a poet, not as a politician who consults his spin doctors and their polls, and reveling in a saturnalian tradition that is not above a touch of bawdry. The perp’s covetousness must have offered a tempting opportunity to exploit the trope of abolishing private property, but did he really wish to characterize the event as typical of an entire political party’s style of sex – to wit, a drunken orgy – hinting at its origins in the hippie-communist milieu decades ago? Such an indiscretion, at the expense of an unconscious woman, shows that while Scandinavian social democracy might serve as a model for economic progressivism, it offers less inspiration for the cultural warriors battling sexism and other abuses of the patriarchy. 

In the interest of fairness, it should be noted that the convicted rapist is appealing his sentence on the grounds that he believed the victim had been awake, although that would not exonerate him from the charge of indecent exposure to Mayor Hedeager Olsen, who took an extended sick leave after the incident. During that time she was spotted serving draft beer at an inn run by a friend, for which she is being investigated for a violation of labor market rules. 

Cheers (in moderation), holiday revelers!