After praising citizens for their careful behavior on Pentecost weekend, the police needed to declare an area in Copenhagen off-limits (DK) because too many people were gathering there. The temperature in Denmark has risen to the highest level of the year, all of 75 degrees, and many went to popular spots at the beaches and harbors. One of the hotspots was the Sandkai and Goteborg Plads waterfront area in Nordhavn, which lies along the Sound in the northern district of Copenhagen.
The place was full of sunbathers lying beside one another and not observing the guidelines on social distancing and limiting gatherings to ten persons. “Citizens did not follow our directions to go to places where there are not so many people,” wrote the police in a press release. People may still pass through the zone and swim from the quay, but they must leave immediately after swimming or else face the possibility of a fine of up to DKK 2,500 ($350). The ban applies until Thursday evening. The ban on gatherings expires on June 8, when the government has said that it will consider raising the limit from ten to 30 to 50 persons if the spread of infections remains under control.
Disperse and regroup
After the ban went into effect, there were reports that many people simply moved to Marmorbyen (DK), a nearby area on the other side of the water, and crowds were congregating there. The sunbathers understood why the police took action, but some were not concerned about the risk of infection. “Honestly, I see better and better news that the infection rate is low and fewer than ever are hospitalized and few deaths,” said one of them. “So in my mind, the worst is over.”
A month ago the Social Liberal Party proposed that the city of Copenhagen expand the number of bathing zones in order to spread out the sunbathers, and it appears that the city is now taking steps to set up new areas near the city center.
The lure of forbidden Sweden
On Monday there was a report that five high school students who had been on a trip to Sweden on Ascension Day weekend had tested positive after they returned to school (DK) and the principal had cancelled classes for a week for all first-year students at the school, Roskilde Cathedral School. A total of 12 students had been together on the trip, which had not been organized or authorized by the school.
It is not certain that the students became infected in Sweden, but the trip violated the government’s restrictions on unnecessary travel abroad. Sweden has not implemented a strict lockdown and has a much higher rate of infection than Denmark. It is not one of the three neighboring countries in the region covered by the plan to reopen the borders to tourists on June 15. Sweden does not prohibit Danes from entering, however. Many Danes have summer houses in southern Sweden and visit them often. “You wonder why the pupils didn’t think more carefully [about the trip],” said Claus Niller Nielsen, the principal. “You wonder why there wasn’t an adult somewhere who put their foot down about the trip.”
Mixed reactions
The incident prompted a representative of the Foreign Ministry to reiterate the government’s warning (DK) against traveling abroad and reminder that travelers returning from other countries should be quarantined for 14 days. While a representative of the students’ organization was annoyed that the entire class had to miss out on classroom teaching again soon after they had returned to school, the mayor of Roskilde, Tomas Breddam, a Social Democrat, took a more indulgent view: "I think we can all remember what it was like to be a first-year high school student at the start of summer. I don’t think we should scold [them], I think we should try to help.”
When Denmark began to relax its lockdown restrictions, it opened its borders up for a certain number of people with “worthy purposes” – those who work in the country or must deliver goods here – and close family members, meaning spouses, partners, parents and children of someone who lives in Denmark. On Thursday, the government announced that it will expand entry permission on June 15 to include residents of Germany, Norway and Iceland who have a romantic relationship with or are grandparents of someone living in Denmark as well as to people who rent a summer house here.
The limitations were a great disappointment to many others who weren’t in that category, perhaps most of all to fiancés and fiancées of Danes in countries other than the chosen three. Some of these couples had planned to hold their weddings this summer, and now one of the partners is stranded (DK) in his or her home country because of what they feel is an arbitrary and pointless distinction. They say it is discrimination. They have complained to the government and founded a Facebook group: “Lovers Separated by the Border Closing during Coronavirus.”
Marriage postponed indefinitely
Ninna Nielsen, from Odense, and Timmie Mathews, from Virginia, for example, have been a couple for eight years and were planning to be married in Denmark in September. Now their plans are ruined. Timmie was in the US on March 14, when Denmark closed its borders, and has been locked out since. They don’t know when they will see each other again except in their daily Skype calls. They had been hoping for good news on Thursday, with the loosening of restrictions, but the government’s tentative next step after this one will be to open the borders after the summer for tourists from other EU member states and the UK.
“I don’t understand why they should discriminate according to what country your boyfriend happens to come from,” says Ninna. “Especially when at the same time the borders are open for spouses from anywhere in the world.”
Separated by a formality
“What I don’t understand is why there is a difference between spouses and lovers,” says Sanne Jacobsen, whose boyfriend has been stuck in New Hampshire since February. “There are of course many Danes who live together for years without getting married.”
There are 546 members of the Facebook group. They have written to members of Parliament, arguing that they do not pose a significant risk of starting a chain of infections, and they have received many sympathetic responses, even from members of the ruling Social Democratic Party, which has set the policy. But their pleas to the government have been refused. Besides making it impossible for them to plan their lives, many say they are suffering emotional stress and anxiety.
No exceptions to the precautionary principle
When Jeppe Bruus, the Social Democrats’ spokesperson for legal matters, was asked why lovers from countries besides Germany, Norway and Iceland may not join their partners in Denmark, he replied that the policy is to reopen the borders in a controlled manner in order to minimize the risk of a new outbreak, in accordance with the precautionary principle that the government has followed throughout the crisis, noting that South Korea has recently had to reimplement a lockdown. The three countries Denmark is opening up to this month “are close to us and at a similar stage in their management of the pandemic.”
Bruus couldn’t offer any promises or hopes to the frustrated couples. Sanne Jakobsen says that Iceland might open its borders for everyone soon, and she and her partner would consider meeting and getting married there so that he would become eligible to enter Denmark.
Last week Germany and France reached an agreement on a relief package for European Union regions and industries (DK) that have suffered most during the coronavirus pandemic. The funding would take the form of a loan for EUR 5 billion that all 27 EU member states would be liable for. It is the first time that Germany has gone along with a proposal for some form of mutualized debt. France had wanted an even larger aid package. Italy and Spain are the countries that have been worst hit by the virus.
North vs. South redux
The measure must be approved by all 27 member states, however, and Denmark is one of a group of four northern European countries that opposes the program. The other countries in the so-called “frugal four” are the Netherlands, Finland and Austria. The group is insisting that the aid take the form of loans instead of grants and that member state contributions remain at 1 percent of GDP. Proponents of the plan say that it is necessary in order to hold the EU together. The EU Commission will present a budget that incorporates the recovery package as long-term debt on May 27.
The EU has a history of reluctantly reaching compromises in order to keep the Union intact. This project would represent a momentous step toward a fiscal union that the wealthier member states have always opposed. In the coming negotiations, for the first time the northern European countries will be on the other side of the debate from Germany, Europe’s largest economy. Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has expressed her opposition (DK) to the plan since it was first proposed by the EU finance ministers last month.
Breakdown of party alignment
The two largest Danish opposition parties support the Social Democratic administration’s rejection of a grant and joint EU debt. “The idea of shared debt in the EU is just as crazy as if you should share a mortgage loan with your neighbor regardless of how they maintained their property,” said Morten Messerschmidt of the Danish People’s Party. On the other hand, the Social Liberal Party, which supports the Frederiksen administration, favors the proposal partly because it will benefit the Danish private sector, which depends on exports.
Frederiksen, who has recently been criticized for locking down Denmark without a clear recommendation from the Health Authority and for being too slow to reopen the Danish economy, thus faces a debate over the proposal among her own supporters in Denmark besides negotiations with the most powerful European countries.
Tourism in pandemic times
Several European countries are also working on a plan to allow cross-border travel (DK) to resume and restart the tourism industry. Germany has recently reopened its borders and has invited Denmark to do the same. German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas has proposed travel guidelines and quarantine rules to be implemented when the tourist season begins next month. Maas held a video meeting with nine other countries to discuss the practical details.
Others are skeptical that the southern European countries will be ready to allow tourists in so soon. Conditions vary greatly from country to country. Spain has only recently begun to relax its lockdown restrictions. On the other hand, Greece has already reopened tourist resorts. Under pressure from opposition parties, Frederiksen has promised to announce a decision this week on reopening the Danish borders. Denmark’s rural economies and summer house owners are anxious not to miss the approaching rental season and the usual influx of German tourists.
On Wednesday, after ten hours’ negotiations, the government reached an agreement with all the other parliamentary parties on an acceleration of phase 2 of the plan to reopen additional sectors of society and the economy (DK). Several types of organization can resume activities on May 27 instead of in June, as scheduled earlier. These include amusement parks, secondary education, adult education, cultural associations, nursing homes for visits, and public-sector workplaces except in the Greater Copenhagen and Zealand Regions. Museums, theaters and zoos may open immediately.
This means that almost everything that still had been closed can reopen on the condition that they observe the guidelines on hygiene and social distancing. The only exceptions are gyms and other indoor sports and recreational activities, nightclubs and concert halls, and institutions of higher education that have not already opened as well as public-sector offices in Zealand. This is the first time the reopening plan has differentiated between the policies for individual regions.
The change in the timetable was made possible because of a new report from Statens Serum Institute (SSI) showing that the infection rate in the country remained low despite the relaxation of lockdown restrictions.
Partying can wait
The parties also agreed raise the limit on gatherings gradually to 30 to 50 persons during the summer, beginning with the transition to phase 3 on June 8. On May 25, the borders will open (DK) for residents of the other Scandinavian countries and Germany who own a summer house or have relatives in Denmark, and a plan to open the borders further for foreign tourism will be announced by May 29.
A majority of Parliament consisting of the right-wing parties, the Social Liberal Party and the Alternative Party had pressed the government especially to open the borders (DK) and to increase the limit on gatherings before the end of May. The SSI warned particularly against large indoor gatherings. When people are together for an extended period without adequate ventilation or the liberal consumption of alcohol makes the observance of precautionary guidelines more difficult, there is a risk of “superspreading” (DK).
Tourists can wait
“The border is the factor that has the greatest economic significance for Denmark right now,” said Jacob Ellemann-Jensen of the Liberal Party. The right wing received support for this position from the WHO (DK), whose spokesperson recently stated that because of its progress in controlling the virus, Denmark should be able to open its borders, assuming that it does so carefully, for example by screening tourists.
The report from the SSI warned that opening the borders posed a risk of starting new chains of infection. Pernille Skipper of the Red-Green Party agreed, reminding the others that the Health Authority had advised allowing for three weeks between phases of reopening in order to monitor the spread of the virus.
The WHO vs. Mette
Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has thus far resisted the economic arguments for large events and open borders. “When you come into Christiansborg [Parliament], you almost get the impression that we have left corona behind us,” she said. “If Denmark has a prime minister who lets herself be pressured into something that isn’t defensible, it simply won’t work. And it won’t happen with me.”
Yesterday was the first day in two months when there were zero deaths from covid-19 (DK) registered. The disease statistics have been falling since around April 1. The number of patients hospitalized declined by ten in the past 24 hours, and the new cases of infection have been below 100 for the past five days. Here are the latest totals:
- Hospitalized: 137
- ICU patients: 32
- On respirators: 26
- Deaths: 537 (93 per million)
- Infected: 10,791
- Recovered:8,959
- Tested: 368,889 persons (400,000+ total)
The results indicate that Denmark’s strategy of beginning the relaxation of restrictions with young children (DK) was effective, says Virologist Allan Randrup Thomsen, Professor of Virology. The staff at schools and day-care centers succeeded in dividing children into groups and maintaining a distance between them. Thomsen cautions, however, that the number of fatalities is not the most important parameter because they can come after a long period of hospitalization. The number of new hospitalizations is more important, and that has also fallen steadily.
Intra-Nordic discrimination?
It’s a little curious that this announcement comes on the same day as a hypothetical complaint from Sweden (DK) about Denmark’s possibly opening its border with Germany but not the border with its closest Scandinavian neighbor. In the political debate on Thursday, some party leaders proposed opening the Danish borders to German and Norwegian tourists. This led Sweden’s Minister for Nordic Collaboration, Anna Halberg, to declare that such a move would be “unfair discrimination.” Halberg argues that one should not compare the spread of the infection in Copenhagen and Stockholm, where it is highest in Sweden, but rather the spread in Greater Copenhagen and the neighboring Skåne region in Sweden, where the spread is less extensive.
Jakob Ellemann-Jensen of the Danish Liberal Party had said that Denmark should “not wait to open the border with Germany until it is defensible from a healthcare perspective to open the border with Sweden.” Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen reiterated that the government will wait until June 1 to open any of the borders. Italy, one of the countries hardest hit by covid-19, has just announced that it will allow foreign travel next month (DK).
The long, hard trek to herd immunity
Sweden has been following a more open policy on the pandemic than Denmark and the rest of the world. It has not ordered a strict lockdown and has not closed restaurants but has rather relied on the population to practice social distancing voluntarily. Its disease statistics are much higher than those in the rest of Scandinavia. There has been some uncertainty about whether its official policy is to pursue “herd immunity,” but in any case, the earlier admirers of its controversial laissez-faire approach from other countries have begun to change their minds about its advisability. It has registered 3,646 deaths (363 per million), almost four times as many per million as in Denmark and Germany and eight times as many as in Norway.
Not everyone agrees that such caution is necessary, however. Søren Riis Paludan, Professor of Virology and Immunology at Aarhus University, says it doesn’t matter whether tourists to Jutland come from Germany or Copenhagen, which also has a higher infection rate than Jutland. He does not even think that the wider spread of the disease in Sweden is significant. While the number of deaths in Denmark fell to zero yesterday, there were 117 new deaths and 625 new infections in Sweden.
Yesterday evening, the leaders of all ten parliamentary parties gathered for their first formal, televised debate (DK) since the beginning of the coronavirus epidemic. After reaching agreements on the earlier steps in managing the crisis and reopening the Denmark’s economy, the opposition parties were eager to stake out their own distinctive positions. Jakob Ellemann-Jensen of the Liberal Party declared that his party would not support any package on economic recovery unless it froze taxes. He characterized the position as an “ultimate demand,” or ultimatum, which in Danish politics is considered an aggressive and provocative maneuver. The Social Democratic government does not necessarily need the Liberals’ votes to pass a bill, but Danish administrations usually try to gather a consensus for the fiscal budget and emergency measures. Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen agreed that higher taxes and duties would not help the private sector suffering during the crisis.
Tax break, opening the border
Before the debate Ellemann-Jensen had proposed reducing VAT by 50 percent (DK) in the second half of 2020 as a way of creating jobs. The move would lower prices for consumers and help businesses recover. VAT in Denmark is 25 percent, and the reduction would put the VAT rate below the EU’s minimum level. Ellemann-Jensen raised this issue in the debate, but got no immediate support from the other right-wing parties. Morten Østergaard of the Social Liberals supported a tax break for businesses but wanted the initiative to take the form of a permanent “green conversion” (DK) that advanced sustainable energy rather than a temporary rescue measure.
Østergaard also pressed Frederiksen on opening the border (DK) at least for German summer tourists in order to boost the rural economies that depend on summer tourism. Germany is opening its borders today and has invited Denmark to join it. Frederiksen said that the government was willing to consider the possibility but warned of the consequences if a German family proved to be spreading the virus and reiterated the government’s intention to wait until June 1 to present a plan for the borders.
Frederiksen in charge
Altogether, there was little new in the debate and not much disagreement. It concluded with the party leaders saying almost unanimously and sometimes emotionally that they looked forward, after the crisis has passed, to being able to give their parents and others a proper hug again (DK). The most noteworthy pronouncements perhaps came before the debate began, when Frederiksen was on her way into the National Gallery, where it was held. Earlier in the day, Frederiksen had sent an email to the party leaders with a new, more optimistic report from SSI, the agency responsible for preparedness against infectious diseases, and an invitation to negotiations on accelerating the reopening. On the way to the debate, she announced that she thought the reopening should proceed more quickly. She thus seemed to take credit for something that many of them had argued for and left them with few options in their response.
The sharpest exchange (DK) of the evening also occurred during Frederiksen’s preliminary colloquy with journalists. When asked whether it was wise to frighten people in the beginning of the crisis by referring to images of Italian trucks carrying corpses, she replied by asking the reporter, Henrik Qvotrup of the tabloid Ekstra Bladet, whether he was certain that things wouldn’t have gone wrong if Denmark hadn’t locked down earlier than other countries. “But you’re the prime minister and I’m the journalist,” Qvotrup answered. “That’s maybe a very good thing for the Danish people, if I may say so,” replied Frederiksen. One commentator remarked that the irritated response indicated that the issue of whether Frederiksen has overdramatized the dangers of the epidemic must be a sore point for her.
Yesterday, the EU Commission presented a tourism package (DK) that is intended to rescue the summer tourist season in Europe. Germany had just announced that it will open its borders tomorrow, and Margrethe Vestager, the European Commissioner for Competition and Danish Social Liberal politician, urged other member states to follow suit. The Danish government has said that it will not consider reopening the borders until after June 1. When asked whether that was too late, Vestager responded, “Both service and production businesses need to move across borders to a greater extent,” adding that all the necessary precautions must be taken.
The package is set of recommendations and guidelines for the member states. For example, people should not travel if they are sick; passengers should check in online and avoid lines at the airport; airlines should not serve food on board; they should take fewer passengers; unrelated passengers should not sit close together; hotels and camping grounds should follow strict hygiene policies. In the first phase, the EU recommends that countries with similar levels of infection (DK) open their borders to each other, for example Denmark and Greece, where the epidemic is under control. The entire Schengen region should not open until later.
Digital travel solutions
The Commission will also develop an interactive map that shows the status of the epidemic in various regions and will present guidelines that will allow the “corona apps” from each country to function in the other member states. The EU has no authority to determine the policies of member states, however. Tourism represents 10 percent of the EU’s economy, and 27 million jobs, directly or indirectly, depend on it, mostly in southern Europe. It represents 8 percent of the Danish economy.
The pandemic has of course been a disaster for countries with a large tourism industry (DK). The Cannes Film Festival should be taking place at the moment, for example, but the many hotels in the region are empty. Italy only last week relaxed restrictions for its own citizens, who must present documentation if they want to travel between regions. Spain, which is also heavily dependent on tourism, is still in the early stages of reopening. Airlines, whose business has plummeted during the crisis, have canceled many flights and passengers are demanding refunds. The airlines have asked for permission to issue credits toward future flights instead, but the Commission has rejected the request.
Pressure from the right
A majority of the Danish parliamentary parties is reportedly in favor of at least a partial opening (DK), for example for German and Norwegian tourists or for people who rent summer houses. At Parliament’s latest question session, representatives of three right-wing opposition parties pressed the government (DK) to follow Germany’s initiative. Danish Justice Minister Nick Hækkerup, however, maintained that Denmark is not ready to put the positive developments in controlling the coronavirus at risk, noting that the epidemic entered the country with skiers returning from Austria and Italy in February. It costs Denmark DKK 107 million ($15 million) for every day that the borders are closed, said Ulla Tørnæs from the Liberal Party.
Hækkerup answered that the losses could be even greater if the borders are opened too soon and the epidemic flares up again. He was open to the possibility of allowing foreigners who already have a rental contract to enter the country, but the session was frustrating for parties on both sides of the debate. “I must confess that I have not become much wiser from this answer,” said Tørnæs after another testy exchange. Not all parties are in favor of an immediate relaxation of border restrictions. The Red-Green Party, for example, warns that the country shouldn’t drop its precautions simply because of the positive trend in limiting infections.
