On Tuesday the tabloid Ekstra Bladet reported that on March 1 Søren Brostrøm, the head of the Health Authority, had advised against a lockdown (DK). That was ten days before Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen announced widespread restrictions. “Limitations on gatherings, closing businesses and educational institutions could have significant negative social and economic effects,” wrote Brostrøm in an email to an unnamed civil servant. “[They] could increase the population’s insecurity and give an impression of a greater risk than is the case.”
This disclosure came soon after the news that immediately before Frederiksen’s announcement the Health Authority had not recommended the restrictions that the government implemented. A spokesperson for the Liberal Party, the largest opposition party, accused Frederiksen of “speaking untruthfully,” and Frederiksen maintained that the government had followed broad recommendations of the authorities. Between Brostrøm’s March 1 email and the March 11 announcement, the number of infections in Denmark rose from four to 514, and the latter figure was later adjusted to 758.
Withheld good news
On Wednesday, another story appeared that raises doubts about the government’s communication of information from the Health Authority. It appears that the government held back news of a positive development (DK) in the spread of the virus until after it had extended the lockdown. On March 20, Brostrøm sent another email, this time to his colleague Kåre Mølbak, saying that the reproduction rate of the infection had fallen from 2.6 to 2.1. He thought that the information should be announced publicly on the same day but reported that a political decision was made to withhold it until March 23.
“The population has had a great deal of confidence in the authorities and the government,” said Martin Geertsen, the healthcare spokesperson for the Liberal Party. “One can only say that the confidence doesn’t go in the other direction. … The government and the prime minister are apparently of the opinion that there is information that the public cannot bear to hear.” After the earlier revelation, the party called for an official consultation with the government on the issue.
Mistakes will occur
Also on Wednesday, Culture Minister Joy Mogensen acknowledged that at the beginning of the coronavirus crisis, the Ministry of Culture did not have a right to prohibit a large number of employees (DK) at the Danish Broadcasting Corporation and the TV2 news service from working. The order applied to all employees at the media organizations except for news journalists. It came on March 11, when the government announced that civil servants who did not perform essential functions should not report for work. Mogensen regretted that the announcement was expressed as an order and not a recommendation: “We have always been open to the fact that this was a completely unusual situation and that because of time pressure mistakes would occur.”
Alienating allies
As the conservative commentator Jarl Cordua wrote yesterday, Frederiksen and the Social Democratic administration have attained historically strong support from the population during the pandemic but their tendency to act independently has brought the opposition together (DK). Although they have managed to react quickly to their own mistakes and miscommunications and thus reduce the political damage, they have driven one of their supporting parties, the Social Liberals, into an alliance with the right-wing parties, particularly on the issue of reopening the borders. This makes it more obvious that it is a minority government, and the opposition will take advantage of opportunities to press its criticism of the government’s management of the pandemic.
The number of coronavirus patients hospitalized, in ICU and on respirators has been declining steadily since April 1. The number of deaths has been falling also, not every day but by half since April 1. Yesterday, Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen (DK) held a press conference to remind people one last time before Easter Sunday to keep their distance from one another and to stay home because it is the only way to stop the outbreak. Police Chief Thorkild Fogde made a separate announcement urging the same and warning that the police would be out and would give fines to people who didn’t adhere to the restrictions on social distancing and gatherings.
On Friday, Steen Bostrøm of the Danish Health Authority revised the Authority’s guidelines (DK) on the risk of infection from persons who are asymptomatic. Previously the risk was described as “unconfirmed” and “very small.” On the basis of international studies and the recommendation of Danish researchers, the risk level has been changed to “significant.”
Mixed opinions on reopening the schools
Schools and day-care centers are preparing to reopen on Wednesday. They expect to hold more classes outside, and some schools have asked to borrow large tents (DK) used for parties so that the classes can also be held outside if it’s raining. Teachers emphasize that children will need to understand they must keep their distance from others and not hug one another. Many parents look forward to a resumption of school and have confidence in the schools’ ability to operate under these extraordinary conditions.
Other reports are not so sanguine. The English-language daily The Local reports that many expat parents think that the schools are reopening too soon and have decided to keep their children home for a while longer. Some feel that all the social distancing that people have followed so far will be wasted and that infections will begin to increase again. Other express fears that the policy is a dangerous experiment in which parents and teachers as well as children risk being infected.
Two parents’ associations issued a protest (DK) have lodged a protest against the Health Authority’s guidelines on school attendance. The guidelines give permission to go to school to children who live in homes where someone has Covid-19 if the patient remains isolated. The two organization, Schools and Parents and the National Parents’ Association, warn that it is very difficult to ensure that children have no contact with an infected person and believe that children from such families should be kept home. Allan Randrup Thomsen, Professor of Virology and University of Copenhagen, concurs, citing the change in the Health Authority’s warning about the risk of infection from asymptomatic carriers. Nevertheless, the Health Authority maintained its position that the risk of infection is minimal. If patients are unable to isolate themselves, they should speak with their doctor and get help from the municipality. The parents’ associations ask how it’s possible for a family member to isolate herself in a small apartment if she uses the same bathroom as others, for example. The Health Authority responds that patients must make sure to use sanitizer whenever necessary. The parents’ associations are not satisfied with that position. The Minister of Children and Education, Pernille Rosenkrantz-Theil did not respond to requests for an interview.
Quest for a “Danish” vaccine
TV2 News, citing a report in the daily Jyllands-Posten, reports that experts have criticized the administration (DK) for not giving more money to research to discover a “national vaccine.” They say there is a great potential that is not being utilized in a collaboration between pharma companies, hospitals and universities. Representatives of several parties agree and are willing to allocate more money to such projects. At least one collaborative project to find a vaccine is under way, and researchers complain that they need more funding. It seems odd that the report refers to a “Danish vaccine,” as though each country must develop its own vaccine and its citizens would not get vaccinated until a vaccine is produced locally. It would make more sense for researchers to collaborate across borders with their counterparts in larger countries and at larger organizations that have already allocated much greater resources to the project.
The Minister of Finance Nicolai Wammen says that the second quarter of 2020 will be the worst period in Danish financial history (DK). The administration expects GDP for the full year to fall 3 to 6 percent. The outlook is very uncertain, however, and depends to a great degree on developments in the countries that Denmark trades with. This forecast is more favorable than the estimates of a group of leading economists reported earlier in the week, which called for a decline in GDP in the range of 11-16 percent in the second quarter and 4-12 percent for the full year.
Today is the beginning of the Easter holidays, when families gather from across the country for parties and people travel to their summer houses. Yesterday, the two main officials in the government’s crisis management team gave brief interviews in which they urged people to stick to the program.
Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen (DK) said that is the next phase will be just as difficult as the past month. It is important that the reopening takes place in stages so that the authorities can follow the development of infections and cautiously so that the country does not risk wasting the progress made in the lockdown.
Director General of the Danish Health Authority Søren Brostrøm (DK) was asked whether he could promise that the infections will not get out of control after schools and day-care centers reopen next week. He warned that they could if everyone does not continue to follow the government and Health Authority’s recommendations on social distancing, washing hands, etc. Reiterating the PM’s exhortation, he said that people must demonstrate over the Easter weekend that they can maintain their discipline because it is our collective responsibility to make the controlled reopening a success.
Not so fast
Meanwhile, there are several other developments as the country moves toward the next stage of the epidemic.
Most of the country’s 20 largest municipalities report that they are not ready to reopen (DK) their schools fully on April 15. The schools and day-care centers need to make new arrangements in order keep the children at distance from one another, to clean the facilities more frequently than usual, and so on. Fourteen of them say if they reopen on the target date they will need to do it gradually because they cannot manage the usual number of children.
A few days ago, there was a report on the percentage of blood donors who were found to have coronavirus antibodies, and it was used to make an estimate of the actual number of infections above the official figures. Since then there has been a boom in blood donations (DK) because people want to find out whether they have been infected and developed immunity. Officials explain that, while testing for antibodies gives a rough indication of the spread of the virus in the general population, it is not intended to determine whether individuals have antibodies and the individual tests are not reliable. The first results from testing on Monday were presented yesterday. They showed that 22 of 1,487 tested positive for antibodies. That would correspond to 127,000 infected persons in the country, as opposed to the 5,386 confirmed cases.
New monitoring tool
I wrote a few days ago that a group of IT people had launched a volunteer initiative to develop a self-reporting tool to monitor people’s symptoms (DK). Yesterday, the Ministry of Health unveiled its own solution for the same purpose, Covidmeter. As many people as possible are urged to report once a week on their health status, their contacts and whether they have been tested. The information will give the authorities a better idea of whether the level of infections is being kept at a manageable level. You can access the reporting app with a secure logon at sundhed.dk (DK), and the information is anonymized.
Hospitals may not be able to care for all of their patients because of extra cases of Covid-19. General practitioners have offered to take on patients and complete their treatment if they need to leave the hospital early. According to an agreement between the Danish Medical Association (PLO) of Zealand and the Zealand Region, they will charge double their normal fees (DK). This has been criticized for being greedy and unsympathetic by spokespersons of the parliamentary parties across the political spectrum. A PLO representative defended the agreement as fair because of the degree of responsibility entailed and added that GPs have seen their income decline about 40 percent during the crisis.
European solidarity
On April 1, Italy sent a request to Denmark for help in managing the Covid-19 outbreak. Yesterday, the administration announced that it would send Italy aid (DK) in the form of a number of respirators, an unstaffed field hospital and EUR 1 million to be used for protective equipment and ambulance operations.
(Note: During the coronavirus crisis, this blog has become daily digest of news from Denmark. Since the situation has stabilized, it will probably also take an Easter break for the next couple of days unless there is something urgent to report.)
