Monday Morning News & Notes
Denmark to make a big vaccination effort beginning this week
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With an influx of 1.17 million extra Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine doses bought from Romania, Denmark’s five health regions are making a major vaccination push beginning this week. Already on Sunday, everyone 16 years old and older in Region Hovedstaden (Metro Copenhagen) could book a vaccination time, regardless of whether they had received an invitation or not.
Region Hovedstaden has opened up 330,000 extra vaccination booking times.
Acting Deputy Director of the Capital Region of Denmark's Emergency Preparedness Helene Bliddal Døssing told DR:
“This means that within a few days we will have invited 200,000 citizens, and in the region we can now vaccinate 25,000 a day. We have received all these vaccines from Romania, and we are all of course fantastically happy about that, because it means that we can invite all citizens to vaccination much faster than we had expected.”
Once all those 16 years of age and up are vaccinated at least once, then the region will begin inoculating 12-to 15-year olds. This could happen “later in July.” The adolescents were recently added to the vaccination schedule to increase Denmark’s chances of reaching herd immunity.
Region Sjælland (the rest of the island outside Metro Copenhagen) says it is receiving an extra 168,000 doses of the Pfizer allotment bought from Romania. This will allow it to increase daily vaccinations to 14,000, per day.
The health authority says it, too, will begin vaccinating the last groups of adults this week. Beginning on Tuesday invitations to book a vaccination appointment will go out to those born in 1985, 1986, 1992, and 1993. Then on Wednesday, people born in 1987, 1988, and 1989 are on deck. Then, on Thursday, anyone born in 1990 and 1991 get their turn.
Region Midtjylland (Central Jutland) also plan to open up vaccinations to everyone over the age of 16 as of today. Regional Director Pernille Blach Hansen told DR the sudden arrival of more Pfizer doses has made a huge difference. Hansen says the original schedule would have seen the last target groups not get invited until sometime during July or August.
That said, the Region said on Sunday, there seems to be some issue for people born in 1984 and 1994 preventing them from booking a vaccination appointment. The health authority said they were working with the Staten Serum Institut on a fix and hoped to have it sorted out shortly.
Region Midtjylland plans on beginning vaccinations for those 12 to 15 years old in week 29, the week of July 19.
In Region Syddanmark (Southern Denmark) they will be a little bit slower, as Regional Council President Stephanie Lose tells DR they are in the process of uploading vaccination invitations to everyone 16 years old and up.
“We expect to be completely on target by Tuesday.”
Lose warns there may be some delays in eBoks with so many invitations all going out at once. She says the Region is also ramping up daily vaccination capacity from 10,000, to 20,000, inoculations.
In Region Nordjylland (North Jutland) invitations to book a vaccination appointment for all remaining adults 16 years old and older will begin this week.
Regional Council President Ulla Astman told DR:
“The 30-34-year-olds are the last group where we have not yet started sending out invitations. But we can now bring it forward as a result of the extra vaccine doses we receive from Romania.”
Astman also warns the eBoks system may get a little jammed up with so many invitations being sent at once. So it could take a few days for them all to arrive. The Region is also stepping up vaccination capacity to 10,000 inoculations per day.
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On the vaccination front, as of Sunday’s update, Denmark’s vaccination campaign has administered 3,406,470 1st vaccine doses (58.2% of the total population) and 2,082,017 second doses (36.6%). As the five health regions put the pedal to the metal beginning this week, it will be interesting to see how much the needle moves in the next few weeks, pardon the pun.
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As of today, the Danish Agency for Patient Safety is making a change in the rules around who should be isolated when someone becomes infected. Until now, the infected person, their close contacts, and the close contacts of the close contacts all had to quarantine pending test results. As of today, that is no longer the case.
Agency Director Anette Lykke Petri told Berlingske:
“We have decided to drop the recommendation on isolation for close contacts in the third stage. However, we maintain that they must continue to be tested on the fourth and sixth day if they are unvaccinated.”
The Danish business community has been lobbying hard for the change. They complain the isolation requirement has led to employees missing work and, in cases, workplaces having to shut down entirely.
Petri defends the strategy, saying it helped delay growth of the Delta variant. But Henrik Ullum had already hinted earlier this week that this strategy was going to change as the Delta variant is now clearly spreading fast.
“If you compare with dikes, then there is about to be a dike break now. And it also means that we are looking at whether we need to change the strategy a bit so that there is not quite as much hassle, but we still have to make sure that the Delta variant does not spread.”
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Denmark recorded 839 COVID infections and one death since Friday’s update. It reported 447 infections on Saturday and another 392 on Sunday. That is the highest number of cases reported on a Saturday and Sunday in three weeks.
There were 104,226 PCR tests done on Saturday for a 0.66% positivity percentage, which is creeping upward.
Here is the latest update on positivity percentage broken down by PCR testing center across the country.
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The UK and its Prime Minister Boris Johnson are not getting a lot of love on Danish social media. British authorities have refused to allow Danish football fans to travel into Great Britain for the EURO 2020 semi-final against England at Wembley Stadium.
Fans are calling foul, noting UK authorities had already approved a plan for 1,000 Danish fans to travel in for the final should Denmark advance in a COVID bubble model, with them arriving, seeing the game, and leaving all on the same day. But they won’t allow the same model for the semi-final match against England on Wednesday.
The outrage is such that Denmark’s ambassador to London has lobbied British authorities for a change of heart, to no avail. Statsminister Mette Frederiksen is also being asked to put pressure on British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. One fan went viral when he tagged Denmark’s Ministry of Defence asking for a little help in a targeted invasion of Wembley Stadium.
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Finland registered 283 infections since its Friday update. There were 192 cases reported on Saturday and another 91 on Sunday. The good news is the number of new daily infections seems to be declining since Wednesday’s 355. Finland has been dealing with an outbreak over the last two weeks linked to thousands of Finnish football fans going to St. Petersburg, Russia, where COVID cases are exploding to catch a game, then returning home to Finland.
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New quarantine rules in Norway have put a damper on travel from parts of Finland. Norway uses COVID incidence rates per 100,000 residents to determine if a country, municipality, or region elsewhere is low-risk ‘green’ or high-risk ‘red.’ Travelers from green areas can come into Norway without a mandatory quarantine, while unvaccinated travelers from red areas cannot. According to the map from the Norwegian Institute of Public Health, the Finnish region of Helsinki and Uusimaa, Päijät-Häme, Pirkanmaa, and Kainuu hospital districts are all red.
While Finns who have been previously infected or who are fully vaccinated can technically travel to Norway without any issues, there is a problem. Finland won’t roll out the EU COVID certificate for a few more weeks. Norway requires the digital passport as proof of previous infection or vaccination. Without it you can’t cross the Norwegian border.
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Norway’s Prime Minister Erna Solberg and Minister of Health Bent Høie will reveal more about the reopening of Norwegian society today. But what was hoped to be good news is now in doubt. On the weekend, the Norwegian Institute of Public Health released its latest threat assessment of the Delta variant concluding it could become the dominant strain in Norway “during the summer.” This could mean pumping the brakes on reopening plans.
The NIPH says over the last four weeks, the share of Delta cases as a percentage of sequenced positive test results has grown from 1.4% to 6.4%.
Director Camilla Stoltenberg:
“Good infection control work in the municipalities can help to delay the spread of this variant in Norway and bring any outbreaks under control. Good vaccination coverage contributes. Nevertheless, Delta is a new and important challenge that requires close monitoring, careful assessment of the level of measures, and good compliance with measures. As an increasing proportion of the population has been vaccinated, the danger of Delta being able to bring the epidemic in Norway out of control decreases.”
Stoltenberg says unlike previous waves those at greatest risk are now vaccinated providing a greater degree of protection.
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Despite over 60% of its population being fully vaccinated, the United Kingdom is seeing its infection curve continued to be pushed up by the Delta variant. Yesterday, it reported another 24,248 new coronavirus cases and 15 more deaths. The number of infections and especially hospitalizations over the last seven days continue to rise.
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Bulgaria is battling significant levels of vaccine hesitancy and now Reuters is reporting the country may offer incentives to encourage people to get the jab. Bulgaria is far behind the rest of Europe, with just 14.5% of the adult population being fully vaccinated. In Sofia, pop-up vaccination sites have been set up in parks and health officials are doing outreach work in Roma neighborhoods to encourage people to get vaccinated. If vaccine uptake doesn’t pick up soon, Bulgaria may have to destroy significant amounts of vaccine doses that are nearing their expiration dates.
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Luxembourg’s Prime Minister Xavier Bettel, who tested positive for COVID a week ago, has been hospitalized. The government said Bettel went to hospital on Sunday “as a precaution” and is expected to stay for 24 hours for “further tests and examinations.”
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The World Health Organization sounded the alarm over the spreading Delta variant that is rapidly outpacing global vaccination efforts. Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the Director General of the WHO, said in a COVID update on Saturday that the Delta variant has now been identified in at least 98 countries. He says the variant is spreading quickly in countries with both low and high vaccination rates.
“Compounded by more transmissible variants, like Delta, which is quickly becoming the dominant strain in many countries, we are in a very dangerous period of this pandemic. In those countries with low vaccination coverage, terrible scenes of hospitals overflowing are again becoming the norm. But no country is out of the woods yet.”
Dr. Tenors says the Delta variant is continuing to evolve and mutate, requiring constant evaluation and adjustment of public health responses. He is urging countries to maintain strong virus surveillance measures and keep testing to detect cases early, isolate them, and get them treated. He says social distancing, wearing a mask, avoiding crowded places, and making sure indoor areas are well ventilated remain crucial.
Also absolutely critical, he said, is to step up global vaccinations. He says a few countries in the world have the collective power to step up a s share vaccines, spur manufacturing increases, and make funds available to “purchase the tools needed.”
“I have urged leaders across the world to work together to ensure that by this time next year, 70% of all people in every country are vaccinated. By the end of this September, we’re calling on world leaders to vaccinate at least 10% of people in all countries. This would protect health workers and those at most risk, effectively ending the acute stage of the pandemic and saving a lot of lives."
Dr. Tedros says while there is some sharing of COVID vaccines “it is still only a trickle” and it is being absolutely outpaced by spreading variants. He is also urging vaccine companies like Pfizer and Moderna to share their knowledge to help speed up new vaccine production.
Olympics
With three weeks to go until the start of the Olympic Summer Games in Tokyo, a third COVID case has been reported. According to Japanese news agency, Kyoto, a member of the Serbian Olympic rowing team, tested positive for the coronavirus on arrival in Japan. The athlete is in isolation at Tokyo’s Haneda airport, while four others were reportedly transferred to another facility near the airport. This comes after two members of the Uganda’s Olympic squad tested positive last month after arriving in Japan.
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In Australia, 35 new infections were recorded in the state of New South Wales on Saturday. That is the largest number of daily infections recorded in the Australian state this year. Australia is seeing another outbreak of COVID cases as the Delta variant arrives. Sydney is in a two-week lockdown, but Western Australia, the Northern Territory, and some parts of Queensland recently came out of their own lockdowns.
Australia has struggled to get its vaccination campaign off the ground, with 1.7 million people fully vaccinated, or 6.81% of its population.
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Israel, the world’s most vaccinated country, is being watched closely to gauge the impacts of the Delta variant. Yesterday, Israel reported 321 new coronavirus infections, the largest daily number of new cases of any day since the beginning of April.
The good news is that Israel has gone ten days without seeing a single COVID death.
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The Delta variant has arrived in South Africa, fueling a third COVID wave there that on Saturday saw the country’s highest-ever number of new infections with 26,485, while adding another 175 corona deaths. On Sunday, 16,585 more infection cases were reported, with another 333 fatalities.
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As of today fully vaccinated Canadian citizens and permanent residents can enter Canada from abroad without having to quarantine. This does not apply to young children who cannot be vaccinated.
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Canada reported 308 infections and suffered 12 more coronavirus deaths yesterday. This will change a little as a number of provinces update numbers as more and more stop reporting on weekends.
The Canadian vaccination effort has so far administered 25,868,512 1st dose vaccinations (67.94% of the population) while 13,036,055 people (34.24%) are now fully vaccinated.
Over the weekend Ontario added 422 new COVID infections. To date it has administered 15,561,071 total vaccination doses.
Quebec hasn’t reported since Friday.
In Atlantic Canada, Nova Scotia recorded three new corona cases. New Brunswick had one new infection and one more death. Newfoundland and Labrador hasn’t updated stats since Friday.
Manitoba saw 64 new infections yesterday and had two more fatalities.
There were 27 infections and no new deaths in Saskatchewan yesterday.
Alberta hasn’t updated its numbers since Friday.
B. C. doesn’t report on weekends and has also ended daily briefings as numbers tumble downward. So we will see what if anything is reported later today. So 78.5% of the population has one dose and 33% have had both.