Danes no longer see corona as a major threat

In Copenhagen, it still looks the same on the streets as in other countries: people with masks everywhere. It is hard to imagine that they are almost gone on Tuesday. While the corona measures in the rest of Europe are gradually being released, Denmark will lift all measures at once next week: face masks are no longer necessary, concert halls and discotheques are allowed to open again and the corona pass will disappear.

It almost seems like an experiment, compared to the cautious steps being taken in the Netherlands: the OMT wants to check after ten days whether the corona virus is not spreading too quickly. But it’s not an experiment, says Tyra Grove Krause. She is in charge of infectious disease control at the SSI, the Danish RIVM, and is one of the most important advisors to the Danish government, a role comparable to that of Jaap van Dissel in the Netherlands. The release of the rules is based, she says, on the data collected on Omikron – in Europe no country tests as much as Denmark. And this shows: it must be possible, to live without measures.

Denmark has already let go of all corona measures. That was in September, when the country had vaccinated 75 percent of the entire population — one of the highest rates in the world. A day later, 50,000 fans danced to a concert at FC Copenhagen’s stadium. Such a massive concert is not yet planned – the Danes are more cautious as the number of positive tests rises to record highs. Hundreds of thousands of people are in quarantine because they have been infected.

Nevertheless, Denmark is preparing for Tuesday. “Then we will really open”, a bartender grins as the last guests pay just after ten o’clock. The catering industry still has to serve the last round at ten o’clock, an hour later all guests have to leave the door. Quite a few pubs are therefore still closed. “Out of public health responsibility,” it reads on their websites or on signs on the door. Those doors will also open again on Tuesday: here and there staff are already busy cleaning the bar.

SSI head Grove Krause would have preferred to have been a little more careful about scrapping the rules. She is behind it, but she would rather have waited until the wave of contamination had peaked.

Why are the rules being lifted now?

“In Denmark, far-reaching rules can only be followed if a disease is officially classified as a ‘danger to society’. This happened again last November, when the number of infections of the Delta variant increased and measures had to be taken again. That was valid for three months, until February 1. We had to decide last week: is Covid still a danger to society? This is done in consultation with top officials from the Ministry of Health and Finance, among others. They question that, if I look at the numbers I can imagine something.”

But is corona no longer a danger to society? More people are becoming infected than ever and many people in Denmark also end up in hospital.

“The risk of being admitted to hospital is much lower than with the Delta variant. We have even seen a sharp decline in the number of people admitted to intensive care since mid-January, there are now 37 patients. And part of it is with a complaint that is not related to the positive test. We also see this in the nursing wards. In the second week of January, only a quarter of all patients diagnosed with Covid were actually treated for Covid, for example with antivirals. We also see a decline in excess mortality: it rose rapidly in the last weeks of 2021, and decreased in the last two weeks. We think this is due to the Omikron variant, which causes fewer victims.”

Do you also think that the endgame has started with the coronavirus?

“I think the worst is behind us. In Denmark, more than 60 percent of the total population has now received a booster. Those who have not been vaccinated now become infected with Omikron. And there are many breakthrough infections, which boost immunity once again. Of course we now know that the antibodies will decrease. But humans also have cellular defenses, and they seem to last longer. This ensures that future variants can be better accommodated. We think those waves will be milder. We will have to protect the vulnerable people.”

This still proves difficult in practice.

“Yes, there are also outbreaks in nursing homes here. We try to keep it out of there by testing staff regularly, and if there is an outbreak, testing residents every day. But the mortality is also lower in nursing homes, and it seems that the booster shot also works in that group. We do expect a new wave to come in the autumn, we have to take into account that another vaccination campaign will be needed later. In the meantime, new treatments for Covid are also being developed that we will hopefully be able to use.”

When Omikron was discovered, Denmark closed its schools and brought forward closing times for the catering industry. What if there is another worrying variant?

“The schools were only closed for a week. I don’t think we should close sectors again. I cannot imagine that there will be a new variant that is both very contagious and very sickening, and which also ends up under the immunity. It must have all three of those qualities to be a threat to society.”

WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus recently said it is “dangerous” to think that this is the latter.

“Oh, there will definitely be a new variant, and the virus has proven to be very unpredictable. You have to be prepared for that too. We are lifting the measures, but we will continue to monitor the virus. Of course it remains important to follow new variants. That will be more difficult, there will be less testing and we will therefore miss more infections. But we’re going to try to keep monitoring the virus by getting people to self-test more intensively and ask them to do a PCR test if the self-test is positive. In the coming months, we will also be rolling out a trial in which we will ask a group of people to test themselves once a week. In this way we can monitor the spread and also detect new variants. And it also remains important to monitor whether vaccine effectiveness declines, particularly in the older population.”

What will happen if a worrying variant is discovered?

“We then want to quickly expand the source and contact capacity, in order to fight the virus again in this way. And we also want to be able to quickly build up vaccination capacity, if necessary. We have invested heavily in testing in Denmark and it sequence positive tests so that we know which variant it is.

„We have a dashboard where we real time can monitor the results of lab tests and hospital admissions, or how many people in a household become infected to see how contagious a new variant is. This allowed us to intervene early at all times. When Omikron came up, we quickly ramped up the booster campaign. That is the only reason we can do this now: a high vaccination coverage, also for the booster.”