Today in Denmark: A round-up of the latest news on Thursday

Politicians to discuss compensation for mink fur farm owners

The ongoing destruction of every farmed mink in the country, due to concerns over a mutated form of coronavirus in the animals, will effectively close down an industry worth several billion kroner annually and cost hundreds, perhaps thousands of jobs.

The Ministry of Industry, Business and Financial Affairs is currently negotiating a compensation package for the industry – work that is expected to continue via online talks today, DR reports.

Since the decision was made last week to cull all fur farm minks, it has emerged that the government lacked the legal authority to make such an order. You can read more about this here.

EU agency to assess risk of mink coronavirus mutation

The decision to cull the minks, as well as to shut down and restrict large parts of North Jutland, was made after national infectious disease agency SSI found evidence based on preliminary test results that a mutated coronavirus variant which came from mink and had been passed back to humans could be resistant to future vaccines.

But several Danish experts have since cast doubt over those concerns following the release of a preliminary research paper by SSI.

The European Medicines Agency, the EU agency concerned with medical products, will this afternoon release its own risk assessment of coronavirus outbreaks at mink farms, DR reports this morning.

North Jutland could be reopened early

North Jutland, the region where the outbreak of the mink coronavirus is centred, has been subject to stringent restrictions since last week, with many under instructions not to leave their home municipalities.

The restrictions are in place until December 3rd, but Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen yesterday suggested they could be eased before that.

In a lengthy Facebook post, Frederiksen wrote that while North Jutland was currently under “tremendous pressure”, “hopefully some of the restrictions be eased earlier – that depends on the ongoing risk assessments by health authorities”.

High court to rule on ban against gangster group

Organised crime gang Loyal to Familia (LTF) was banned earlier this year in a verdict at Copenhagen City Court. That judgement is to be tested today at the high court for the east of Denmark, Østre Landsret.

The case, which has been ongoing since 2018, seeks to ban an association from existing in Denmark for the first time since the Second World War.

“Most people are aware that LTF members commit violent crime, but I believe we can also prove that they do it as an organised association,” state prosecutor Jan Reckendorff said I 2018.

Did US ambassador to Denmark intentionally spread misleading information over her vote?

Carla Sands, the United States Ambassador to Denmark, posted several days ago a screenshot which she claimed showed her absentee ballot in the state of Pennsylvania had not been registered.

Absentee or mail-in votes in the state can be tracked using the voter's name, date of birth and the county they voted in. All of this information for Sands is public. Although I was unable to access the ballot tracking page on the Pennsylvania state government website, several other Twitter users – as well as the New York Times – were, and found that Sands’ vote was indeed registered, on October 15th.

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Sands, who was appointed by President Donald Trump, has made several Twitter posts since the election in support of Trump’s baseless claims of election fraud.

Danish vocabulary:

• Forhandlinger: negotiations
• Byret, landsret, højesteret: city or district court, national (high) court, supreme court
• Bande: (criminal) gang
• Stemmeseddel: ballot