Some vaccine relief arrives in Denmark

New supplies fuel hope of reinvigorating vaccination efforts

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Denmark is reporting 384 COVID infections and seven more coronavirus deaths since Monday’s update.

Yesterday 95,939 COVID tests were done across the country equaling a 0.4% positivity percentage.

COVID hospitalizations (298) continue to decline (-17) those in an ICU (63) are also down (-5) while those in an ICU and on a ventilator (42) is unchanged. Hospitalizations are the lowest they have been since the beginning of December.

Vaccinations

On the vaccination front to date 250,300 1st doses (4.29% of population) and 171,427 2nd vaccine doses (2.94% of population) have been administered.

For the first time in weeks first doses are now outnumbering second ones as new vaccine supplies arrive.

Vaccine utilization is at 96.1%.

The Metro Copenhagen Health Region opened 20 pop up vaccination centers today to help speed things up.

In the nearby Sjælland Health Region, the region covering the rest of the island outside of Metro Copenhagen, it says it now has enough vaccination centers up and running that there is one within 20 kilometers of any home within its area.

Infection Rate

Denmark’s Health Minister Magnus Heunicke says the COVID contact number (reinfection rate or R0) is 0.9 down from 1.0 last week. This is for the ‘original’ strain..

Last week young children in grades 0-4 in Denmark were sent back to school. One week in and the contact number has declined, which is welcome news.

However the U.K. variant continues to spread at an exponential rate. Heunicke says the strain has now been found in 45% of all sequenced positive tests as of last week, it was just over 2% in the last week of December. The variant’s contact number is a much higher 1.25.

The reinfection rate measures virus spread. Anything over one indicates degrees of an outbreak while anything under one shows infections are diminishing.

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Sweden has added 9,458 infections and suffered another 59 corona deaths since its last update on Friday.

Of concern over the last few weeks infections in Sverige have begun to trend slightly back upwards.

To date in Sweden 364,120 1st doses (4.44% of population) and 141,778 2nd vaccine doses (1.73% of population) have been administered.

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Finland has registered 385 infections and another four corona deaths since Monday’s update.

COVID hospitalizations (95) are down (-13) while those in ICU (27) have increased (+6).

To date 216,298 1st dose and 67,392 2nd vaccine doses have been administered.

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Norway has added 348 infections and had no new corona deaths since yesterday’s update.

COVID hospitalizations (80) have declined (-6) while those on a ventilator (18) are unchanged.

To date 233,362 1st doses and 71,418 2nd vaccine doses have been administered.

Europe

The European Medicines Agency, E.U’s pharmaceutical and drug watchdog, has received an application from Johnson and Johnson for its single shot ‘Janssen’ vaccine. A decision whether or not to recommend its use in the Europe will come mid-March. The European Union has an agreement for up to 400 million doses if approved for use.

Across Europe Spain saw its infection numbers tick up day over day.

Italy saw a day to day infections decline but for four weeks now it’s infection curve has essentially treaded water, which is concerning.

Germany continues to bend its infection curve down. Germany is going to offer free COVID rapid tests to everyone in the country beginning next month. “From March 1st, all citizens will be able to be tested free of charge by trained personnel" Health Minister Jens Spahn tweeted. The hope is making the rapid tests available to everyone can enable Germany reopen even as the threat of new variants grows.

Today a Dutch court ordered the government to lift a nationwide coronavirus curfew. In its ruling it said the government had abused its emergency law powers in introducing a curfew. The ruling was set aside hours later by an appeal court reinstating the government’s authority to impose curfews.

Yesterday France saw its usual very low Monday numbers.

United Kingdom

The U.K. pandemic situation continues to improve with 9,765 new infections and 230 deaths yesterday. The rate of positive tests, fatalities, and COVID hospitalizations continues to decline.

The gap between 1st and 2nd vaccine doses is almost 15-million, as the U.K. gambles on the benefits of 1st dose immunity while pushing off 2nd dose shots in some cases well past what is recommended.