Minister of Health Magnus Heunicke says that the health authorities will issue guidelines for large political demonstrations (DK) in order to avoid the spread of the coronavirus. At least one person who attended the Black Lives Matter demonstration on June 7, along with 15,000 others, has tested positive, and other people who were part of the closely packed crowd are urged to be tested.
Event arrangers “will get a very concrete evaluation from the Danish Patient Safety Authority on how they should conduct the demonstration purely from a healthcare perspective,” said Heunicke. He stressed that this measure will not abridge people’s constitutional right to stage political demonstrations, which are the only exceptions allowed to the restrictions on the number of people who may attend gatherings. On June 8 the limit on gatherings was raised from ten to 50.
More requests for tests
Since Heunicke urged demonstration participants to be tested, the number of referrals for tests has risen (DK). The day after, there were 400 more bookings than usual. “I thought it was an opportunity to take responsibility for what I did and to see whether or not I have been infected,” said one person at the Test Center, who had worn a face mask and tried to keep a distance from other demonstrators. Despite the rise in bookings for the tests in the capital region, the testing is still below capacity.
Flashmob with precautions
BLM was to hold another demonstration (DK) on Thursday, and the spokesperson for the organization, Bwalya Sørensen, says that it would use special measures to prevent the spread of the virus. It bought 250 face masks, it had lots of sanitizer, and it would divide participants up into groups of 50 or fewer. “We have chosen a flashmob instead of a demonstration,” said Sørensen. “We have done it simply to keep the number of participants down.” More than 100 people have signed up for the event.
After the demonstration on June 7, Sørensen received criticism for issuing restrictions on the behavior of white people at the event. The Ritzau news agency wanted to ask her whether the guidelines would also apply at the new demonstration, but she hung up the phone.
Virus infiltrates key export product
A coronavirus outbreak has been identified in a new location, a mink farm in northern Jutland (DK). The Danish Veterinary and Food Administration has tested 34 mink and placed restrictions on the farm. The herd in question will be slaughtered, and the farm will be quarantined. Mink breeding is an important industry in Denmark, which is the largest mink breeder in the world, with almost 1,400 mink farms.
This is the first time the coronavirus has been discovered at one of them. The infection probably came from an employee or the owner the farm, say the authorities.There were coronavirus outbreaks at two mink farms in the Netherlands in April.
“We will be completely certain that we do all that we can to limit the infection,” said Mogens Jensen, Minister of Environment and Food, “also among mink.” The ministry is investigating how the infection arose and preparing a testing strategy for other mink farms in the region, among other measures. Healthcare researchers are not worried (DK) that the infection will spread from mink to people and say that pet owners shouldn’t be afraid that their dogs and cats will make them sick.
A demonstration against lockdown restrictions (DK) has finally come to Denmark. On Saturday, several hundred people gathered in front of Copenhagen City Hall to protest the loss of their constitutional rights without a reasonable justification on healthcare grounds. Some four hundred people had signed up for the event on Facebook labelled “#TogetherforFreedom.” They listened to rock music and brandished posters with slogans such as “COVID-19 is not at all dangerous.” “The public has not at any time seen documentation that this is an extraordinary crisis situation,” said the arrangers’ statement.
Government secrecy
“These are political decisions, and we want to call attention to the legitimacy of being critical and asking questions,” said Marie Jensen, one of the persons behind the event. “The Health Authority has not recommended the interventions that the government has made. We don’t know what the Health Authority would have recommended, and we think that we haven’t gotten an answer to that.” Another of the arrangers is the doctor Vibeke Manniche, who in several blog posts has criticized the government’s actions as “corona hysteria” (DK).
It is clear from video recordings of the event that more than ten persons gathered close “together” at the site, and this would normally be a violation of rule on congregating. But the police did not react and issue fines, as they have done elsewhere, because the ban does not apply to political demonstrations.When asked whether the participants didn’t have an obligation to follow the government’s recommendations, such as keeping a distance of at least one meter from one another in order to prevent the spread of the virus, Jensen answered, “If it was very dangerous, then there would be prohibition against it. And as long as there isn’t a ban, we have a right to do it.”
Growing European movement
The demonstration appeared to be peaceful, with none of the guns or death threats that have cropped up in American protests. There was surprisingly little coverage of it by Danish news sources. There have been similar demonstrations in several cities in Germany recently, and some of them have turned violent. Many of the demonstrators there and in London appear to endorse the theories that the virus was created in a lab by a big pharma company and/or that it is being used in a plot to enforce compulsory vaccination.
There were also large gatherings in Norway (DK) yesterday in defiance of that country’s limit on gatherings, but they appeared not to be protests against pandemic restrictions as much as the traditional parties on the eve of the Norway’s Constitution Day. Police reported that there were up to 1,000 students gathered at Frogner Park and that they did not have the capacity to intervene with measures to mitigate the spread of the virus. Official events celebrating Constitution Day have been cancelled or limited in scope. The epidemic is much more limited in Norway than in Denmark, where it is also low from an international perspective.
Lockdown exit too slow
The timing of the demonstration in Denmark is somewhat ironic. Denmark has never issued strict stay-at-home orders or required people to wear masks in public. It is in the midst of phase 2 of the relaxation of restrictions. Last week shopping centers reopened and the guideline on social distancing was reduced from two meters to one meter. Tomorrow restaurants, libraries and other institutions, churches and middle schools can reopen. One of the few restrictions left to protest is the one on large gatherings at events such as concerts, theaters and sporting events – with the exception of political demonstrations.
