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Denmark fines 17 winter bathers for gathering in frozen lake

Police in Denmark have charged 17 people with breaching the Covid-19 public assembly restrictions after they gathered in a lake near Roskilde.

Published: 18 January 2021 16:55 CET

Denmark fines 17 winter bathers for gathering in frozen lake

Illustration photo: Mathias Løvgreen Bojesen/Ritzau Scanpix

A member of public reported the winter bathers to the police at 9:20am on Sunday, resulting in them breaking up the low-temperature gathering, news wire Ritzau reports.

“Even from the patrol car, we could see that too many people were gathered and a photograph was taken to document it,” deputy inspector Michael Sehested of Central and West Zealand Police told Ritzau.

A popular leisure pursuit in Denmark, Sweden and Norway, winter bathing involves taking a dip in ice-cold water before usually heading into a sauna to regain warmth and repeating the process, usually around three times. It can be done at bathing facilities or more natural locations.

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Police booked the bathers, who were gathered around a hole in the ice on the Himmelsøen lake, before asking them to leave the area. They face fines of 2,500 kroner for breaching the Covid-19 restriction.

“We feel our communication has been quite clear and that authorities have been quite clear that not more than five people are allowed to gather,” Sehested said.

The inspector said he believed the gathering at the lake had been planned in advance.

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IN NUMBERS: Has the Omicron Covid-19 wave peaked in Denmark?

Graffiti in the Copenhagen hippy enclave of Christiania complaining of Omicron's impact on Christmas. Photo: Philip Davali/Scanpix

How many cases, hospitalisations and deaths are there in Denmark?

Denmark registered 12,588 new cases in the 24 hours leading up to 2pm on Saturday, down from the 18,261 registered on in the day leading up to Friday at 2pm, which was itself a decline from the record 28,283 cases recorded on Wednesday.

The cases were identified by a total of 174,517 PCR tests, bringing the positive percentage to 7.21 percent, down from the sky high rates of close to 12 percent seen in the first few days of January.

The number of cases over the past seven days is lower than the week before in almost every municipality in Denmark, with only Vallensbæk, Aarhus, Holseterbro, Skanderborg, Hjørring, Vordingborg, Ringkøbing, Kolding, Assens, Horsens, Thisted, and Langeland reporting rises.

Hospitalisations have also started to fall, with some 730 patients being treated for Covid-10 on Saturday, down from 755 on Friday. On Tuesday, 794 were being treated for Covid-19 in Danish hospitals, the highest number since the peak of the 2020-21 winter wave.

The only marker which has not yet started to fall is the number of deaths, which tends to trail infections and hospitalisations.

In the 24 hours leading up to 2pm on Saturday, Denmark registered 28 deaths with Covid-19, the highest daily number recorded since 20 January 2021, when 29 people died with Covid-19 (although Denmark’s deadliest day was the 19 January 2021, when 39 people died).

How does Denmark compare to other countries in Europe?

Over the last seven days, Denmark has had the highest Covid-19 case rate of any country in Europe bar Ireland. The number of new infections in the country has climbed steadily since the start of December, apart from a brief fall over Christmas.

So does this mean the omicron wave has peaked?

Maybe, although experts are not sure.

“Of course, you can hope for that, but I’m not sure that is the case,” said Christian Wejse, head of the Department for Infectious Diseases at Aarhus University Hospital. “I think it is too early to conclude that the epidemic has peaked.”

He said that patients with the Omicron variant were being discharged more rapidly on average than had been the case with those who had the more dangerous Delta variant.

“Many admissions are relatively short-lived, thankfully. This is because many do not become that il, and are largely hospitalized because they are suffering with something else. And if they are stable and do not need oxygen, then they are quickly discharged again.”

Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said during a visit to an event held by the Social Liberal party that the latest numbers made her even more optimistic about the coming month.

“We have lower infection numbers and the number of hospitalisations is also plateauing,” she said. “I think we’re going to get through this winter pretty well, even if it will be a difficult time for a lot of people, and we are beginning to see the spring ahead of us, so I’m actually very optimistic.”

She said that she had been encouraged by the fact that Omicron was a “visibly less dangerous variant if it is not allowed to explode.”

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