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New Danish epidemic law could be reviewed by parliament in autumn

A new law for the national response to epidemics, which is expected to be passed by the Danish parliament on Tuesday, could undergo a thorough parliamentary review later in the year after a majority of parties expressed concern over it.

Published: 22 February 2021 17:17 CET

New Danish epidemic law could be reviewed by parliament in autumn

File photo: Liselotte Sabroe/Ritzau Scanpix

A majority of parties outflanking the Social Democratic government wants to review the law, with the Liberal party, the largest on Denmark’s right, putting forward an amendment to the bill on Monday, newspaper Jyllands-Posten reported.

The party wants the law to be reviewed no later than October 15th.

“There could easily be irregulates here and there, and things which haven’t been picked up on. This has had a very urgent character,” the party’s health spokesman Martin Geertsen told Jyllands-Posten.

The current epidemic law was rushed through as an emergency bill in March 2020 and expires at the beginning of next month.

A number of elements of the new law have been criticised by experts, resulting in the Liberals raising concern over it. The Conservative and Danish People’s parties on the right, plus the left-wing parties Red-Green Alliance and Social Liberal party, support the proposed amendment.

The new law has been criticised for being far-reaching and lacking in safeguards for the public, including in relation to a provision allowing for state monitoring of public users of facilities like gyms and libraries.

READ ALSO: Denmark scraps provision for enforced vaccination in new epidemic bill

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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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