Monday Morning News & Notes
Mask and visor use largely goes bye bye in Denmark today
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As of today, the requirement to wear a mask has been lifted in many places where it had been, up until now, mandatory. But there are still places and specific situations where mask use is still a must.
National Health Board Director Søren Brostrøm:
“We have assessed that it is possible to relax the requirement in places where it is possible to keep distance and places where coronapas is used and there are good opportunities for infection detection. This is, for example, when we shop, go to a restaurant, go to the hairdresser, go to a museum, or when you pick up and bring your children to day care. In public transport, it is our recommendation that we can take off the mask when we sit down, but should keep it on when we walk, or get up, until after the summer, when more people have been vaccinated. When we are to be tested, face masks are also still relevant, and if you have symptoms or are infected, and exceptionally have to go out, you should of course also continue to wear face masks so that you do not infect others.”
Also today, schools largely return to ‘normal’ operations and the coronapas begins to be phased out. Its use will be lifted in areas determined to be of the least COVID risk first, like libraries, for example.
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While the mask mandate will be largely abolished as of today, there is still uncertainty about which facilities can or cannot go mask-free. Jyllands-Posten spoke to four of the largest hospitals across Denmark and reports they have yet to receive any kind of guidelines from the National Health Board. Until they do, masks will still be required inside hospital areas.
Yesterday, Odense University Hospital also posted to its Facebook page.
“However, we would still like to ask that you wear a mask when you travel to Odense University Hospital, Nyborg Hospital, Svendborg Hospital, or Ærø Hospital. This also applies to test centers and vaccination centers.We are waiting to hear from the National Board of Health whether the changed rules for masks or visor use also apply in hospitals and in the rest of the health service.”
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Over the weekend the Danish Foreign Affairs ministry downgraded Cyprus, Croatia, Luxembourg, and Switzerland from medium COVID risk orange to low risk yellow.
In Greece, the regions of Voreio Aigaion (including the islands of Chios, Lesbos, and Samos), Notio Aigaio (including the islands of Kos, Naxos, Rhodes, and Santorini) and East Macedonia and Thrace (including Thassos) all move from orange to low-risk yellow.
However in Switzerland, the districts of Appenzell Innerrhoden, Obwalden, and Jura have been upgraded from low-risk yellow to medium-risk orange.
Here is how the rest of Europe looks in Denmark’s coloured coded COVID risk assessment.
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Since Friday’s update Denmark has added 752 COVID infections and two more deaths. There were 437 infections reported on Saturday and another 315 on Sunday.
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Denmark’s vaccination effort hit its usual weekend slow down with 46,546 total vaccinations yesterday after exceeding 70,000 each day of last week. To date, there have been 2,691,826 1st dose vaccinations administered (46% of the population) while 1,488,360 people (25.4%) are now fully vaccinated.
Denmark’s Health Minister Magnus Heunicke is marking having one in every four Danes fully vaccinated as a major milestone. He also notes another important moment in the declining pandemic, with hospitalizations under 100 admissions for the first time since the end of last September.
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As infections drop, restrictions ease, and Denmark inches closer to saying goodbye to the pandemic, it seems pickpockets are as eager for a return to normal as the rest of us. According to Topdanmark says as restrictions eased in the last couple of months, there were over 230 reported pickpocketing cases reported in May alone, the highest number of any month since the pandemic began.
Director Rasmus Ruby-Johansen:
“The preferred target for pickpockets is one's wallet with cash and debit cards, where the thief may have eavesdropped on the code. Otherwise, the pickpockets are targeted for easily negotiable things, where expensive mobile phones are the ones that are stolen the most.”
The insurance organization says while break-and-enter statistics remain low, they are anticipating homes will be targeted by thieves in increasing numbers again.
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Authorities in Norway are trying to figure out how to deal with about 110,000 people who are technologically illiterate and are unable to access the digital koronasertifikat, Norway’s vaccine passport. Government officials are looking at various options and the Norwegian Institute for Public Health is also working on a way to issue paper versions of the digital passport. Potentially, once people are fully vaccinated, they could call a number and have a paper koronasertifikat delivered.
While the koronasertifikat will certainly be required for international travel, its scope of use within Norway has yet to be revealed. A press conference is being held later today to announce exactly how it will be used as decided by the government.
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Norway will receive 400,000 fewer Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine doses than it had anticipated next month. Norwegian’s Health Minister Bent Høje told Norway’s VG that the vaccine maker was prioritizing “markets other than the EU” for vaccine deliveries. But Joachim Henriksen, head of communication for Pfizer in Norway, says the number of doses being delivered next month should come as no surprise and is per the agreement struck with Norwegian authorities.
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The European Medicines Agency is continuing to assess reports of myocarditis and pericarditis (inflammation of two different parts of the heart) after vaccination. The EU drug watchdog says the incidence rate within the European Economic Area ranges from one to 10 people per 100,000 residents per year. The agency says it seems to be impacting mostly men under the age of 30, with symptoms including shortness of breath, forceful heartbeat, and chest pain, which were mostly mild and dissipated after a few days.
The EMA says there have been 122 reports of myocarditis and 126 of pericarditis after Pfizer/BioNTech vaccinations. For Moderna, it is 16 reports of myocarditis and 18 pericarditis. AstraZeneca has 38 and 47. There has been one report of pericarditis after a Johnson & Johnson vaccination and no reports of myocarditis.
The agency says it has not determined a causal relationship with any of the vaccines, but its review is continuing.
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The Danish Medicines Agency has had 13 reports of either myocarditis or pericarditis after vaccination. The agency says a causal relationship to COVID vaccines has not yet been determined but it also at this point cannot rule out a link.
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The Delta variant continues to drive COVID numbers back upward in the United Kingdom, one of the world’s most vaccinated countries. The number of infections, deaths, and hospitalizations all continue to increase.
🇨🇦 🇫🇷 🇩🇪 🇯🇵 🇮🇹 🇬🇧 🇺🇸
As the G7 meeting in Cornwall, England, ends, the nations involved have agreed to implement a series of measures to try and prevent another global pandemic. The Cardis Bay agreement, in essence beefs will up global virus surveillance and fast-track vaccine development. The WHO has given the plan a cautious endorsement, while its Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus notes the G7 countries still need to find a way out of the current pandemic. He continues to emphasize the inequity of global vaccination campaigns, with the world’s wealthiest countries vaccinating in huge numbers while most developing nations, in the race of our lives “have not left the starting line.”
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G7 leaders also called for a new investigation into how the COVID pandemic began in the final communique issued at the summit before it ended.
"We also call for a timely, transparent, expert-led, and science-based WHO-convened Phase 2 Covid-19 Origins study including, as recommended by the experts' report, in China.”
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The epidemic stole the wind beneath the airline industry wings as global travel came to a screeching halt. The International Air Transport Association is now anticipating there won’t be a return to pre-pandemic ‘normal’ until 2023. According to a report by AFP the industry association is forecasting a robust recovery, seeing 8.5 billion airline passengers traveling internationally by 2039, roughly double numbers seen in 2019.
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Canada’s Chief Public Health Officer Dr. Theresa Tam warned yesterday that variants of concerns, including the concerning Delta variant, are behind outbreaks popping up across the country. The Delta variant has been confirmed to be responsible for most of the new infection in Alberta and was behind an outbreak at a Calgary hospital.
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Over the weekend Ontario added 1,032 new infections, 502 were reporting on Saturday and another 530 on Sunday.
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Starting today several regions of Quebec, including Montreal, will be downgraded to low risk yellow allowing for a number of businesses to reopen and some activities to resume.
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While infections climb down from towering heights in India the country remains as the epicenter of global infection activity. Yesterday it reported 68,400 new infections and another 1,761 coronavirus deaths.
Over the weekend two Indian states reported over 10,000 backlogged virus deaths.
