The Evening Report - Apr 12
All eyes on a potential NATO bid for Sweden and Finland. WHO studies new variants.
Editors Note: Informeret will be taking an Easter break as I take holidays with my family. Our next edition after this one will be Monday, April 25. Thanks for subscribing, sharing, and appreciating this newsletter. Enjoy your Easter long weekend with your friends and family. See you in 12 days.
🇺🇦/ 🇷🇺 War
NATO
NATO is undergoing a “fundamental transformation” in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has told The Telegraph the military alliance will deploy a permanent full-scale military force along the border with Russia. This significant increase of NATO’s military presence will be established to fend off any future Russian invasion.
“What we see now is a new reality, a new normal for European security. Therefore, we have now asked our military commanders to provide options for what we call a reset, a longer-term adaptation of NATO."
NATO usually maintains a small force along the Russian border, but since the invasion of Ukraine the number of military personnel has grown to over 40,000 troops.
🇫🇮 🇸🇪/ NATO
Keep your eye on Finland and Sweden too for that matter. Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin has told Finnish media outlet Iltalehti that a decision on whether to join NATO, or not, will be made in a matter of weeks.
Marin says that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine changed the entire European security environment.
“We are having this debate because Russia has attacked Ukraine. It changed Finland's relationship with Russia in a fundamental way. I don’t think our relations with our neighbors will return to what they have been.”
Marin who has said recently that Russia “is not the neighbour we thought it was” says that a major upside to joining NATO would be the security guarantees.
“A possible NATO membership would ensure that, in accordance with Article 5, other Member States are obliged to assist and assist in the event of an attack on a Member. This, of course, brings security, and I personally see that it also has a preventive effect.”
Finland has been in serious talks with Sweden with the hope that both countries would be of like minds and move in tandem to join NATO. This makes the news Marin also revealed to the newspaper especially interesting, that she will meet with Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson on Wednesday in Stockholm to discuss NATO.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has repeatedly said that should one or both of the Nordic nations apply to join NATO, the process to approve them would be very quick.
Russia has repeatedly threatened some kind of retaliation should Finland and/or Sweden make a move to join the military alliance.
🇩🇰/ 🇲🇩 🇺🇦
The Danish National Health Board has sent off another shipment of medical supplies for Ukrainian refugees. This time the trucks will be headed to refugee camps in Moldova. They will bring with them 6,300 packages of medicine ranging from anesthesia to treatments for fungal infections.
🇩🇰
“The COVID pandemic in the last two years has shown us that it is important to be prepared. The war in Ukraine has shown us that the world is unpredictable.”
Thus begins a press release from Denmark’s National Board of Health announcing that it will increase its “iodine contingency.” That is, it will increase the number of iodine tablets stockpiled in the event of what it is describing as a “significant radioactive release.” The two examples provided are due to an accident at a nuclear power plant or an accident with a nuclear powered vessel in Danish waters.
The health board will purchase two-million iodine tablets that will be earmarked for risk groups including children, young people under the age of 18, emergency personnel under the age of 40, and pregnant and breastfeeding women.
A Danish stock of 2 million iodine tablets is estimated to be able to cover the risk group consisting of children and young people up to and including 18 years, outgoing health and emergency personnel up to and including 40 years and pregnant and breastfeeding women. For people over the age of 40, no protective effect is seen by taking iodine tablets.
The health agency says it has contracts in place with Danish production pharmacies for the production and delivery of the iodine tablets. They are expected to be delivered in the next two to three months.
🇩🇰/ 🇺🇦
As of today, all Ukranian refugees in Denmark who have applied for residence in the country will have access to the healthcare system while their application is being processed.
The Danish Minister of Health Magnus Heunicke:
“We are in a special situation where a large number of displaced persons from Ukraine are waiting to receive a temporary residence permit in Denmark. There is a need to ensure that they receive the necessary health benefits, for example, treatment for chronic diseases and other medical issues, until they obtain a temporary residence permit. That is why we are now expanding the right to necessary health services. It is a new executive order that helps the Ukrainians.”
🇱🇻/ 🇷🇺
The Baltic states and Poland continue to not mince words when discussing Russia. On Tuesday, Latvia’s Foreign Affairs Minister Edgars Rinkēvicš once again called out Russia.
“After seeing so many horrific scenes of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by the Russian forces in Ukraine, it is clear that the only country in the world that needs real denazification is the Russian Federation.”
Rinkēvicš says Latvia is pushing for more sanctions against Russia, including on its oil and gas exports, as well as cutting more Russian banks off from global transaction facilitator SWIFT. It also continues to urge the world to keep providing Ukraine with weapons to fight Russia.
🦠Pandemic🦠
🇩🇰
“These are honestly super good numbers.”
Denmark’s Health Minister Magnus Heunicke says the COVID contact number (reinfection rate or R0) remains at 0.7, where it has been for four straight weeks.
Heunicke says coronavirus wastewater sampling, which is a more reliable pandemic barometer, also confirms the declining epidemic trend nationwide and with declining virus activity across all five Danish regions.
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COVID hospitalizations (886) continue to drop (-37) while the number of severe infection cases in an ICU (17) have also declined (-5) and of those the number on a ventilator (7) inched down (-1). Infection admissions to a psychiatric ward (275) also edged downward (-2).
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Denmark reported 2,683 COVID infections (underreported), including 172 reinfections, and 11 more coronavirus deaths in the last day.
Yesterday, there were 17,673 PCR tests taken equaling a positivity percentage of 15.83%,. Worth noting, that the positivity percentage, which is a reliable pandemic barometer, is also steadily falling.
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On the vaccination front, it continues to be a game of inches with just 534 booster doses administered yesterday.
To date, 82.2% of the total population have one vaccine dose, 80.8% have two and 61.5% have been boosted.
🇸🇪
The number of COVID patients in Sweden’s capital region is not declining as fast as officials would like. Region Stockholm says there are 226 people with severe infections in hospital, which is eight fewer than there were a week ago.
Chief Physician Johan Bratt:
“There are only eight fewer patients with covid-19 who are being cared for at our hospitals than there were a week ago. If the numbers don’t drop faster, we will have a real extra strain on healthcare employees when we enter the summer and the holiday period.”
Hospitals across the region have returned to normal operations and are now focusing on clearing away backlogged procedures that have built up over the different infection waves.
Last week, the region saw 908 new infections (wildly underreported) and suffered 24 more pandemic deaths.
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Sweden’s Medical Products Agency says there is nothing to worry about as Moderna recalls almost 800,000 doses of its COVID vaccine due to a contaminated vaccine bottle. About 200,000 of those doses were from Sweden, but the agency says not to fear they had arrived in January and hadn’t been used yet. While no further contaminated bottles have been found, Moderna is recalling the entire production batch in order to be safe and not sorry.
🇳🇴
Norway has added 1,349 infections (underreported) and reported no new virus deaths in the last 48 hours.
It doesn’t report hospitalization stats anymore.
To date, 80.4% of Norwegians 12 years old and older have one dose, 74.7% have two, and 54.2% have a booster dose.
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Stay home if you are sick. If you boiled down the new COVID recommendations from the Norwegian Institute of Public Health, that is what you would get. People are no longer required to isolate for four days if they get sick and have coronavirus symptoms. Don’t bother getting tested either as that is no longer required. If you have a severe infection, the agency recommends people call their doctor. In virtually all other instances, the recommendation is to stay home if you are sick. There is one exception and that is people in vulnerable and high risk groups.
The NIPH says the COVID winter wave seems to be returning. It will distribute self-testing kits for those who want them, but “the advice for both a positive and negative test is the same; stay home if you feel sick.”
The agency says municipalities will keep COVID testing sites open “for a little while longer” in order for people who need them for various purposes to get negative test results.
🇫🇮
Finland registered 7,216 infection and had no new corona deaths since yesterday’s update.
COVID hospitalizations (966) have increased (+42).
So far, 80.2% of the total population have one vaccine dose, 76.9% have two, and 51.4% have a booster shot.
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Not bad, but plenty of room for improvement. That is, in essence, the finding of a new study into Finland’s handling of the COVID pandemic. The study conducted by Nordic Heakthcare Group and the University of Tampere found the country handled the pandemic fairly well, but there were some shortcomings. Namely, a lack of consistency with COVID lockdown rules, which the study found undermined public acceptance of the rules. As well, it noted a lack of cooperation and communication between government ministries and the different levels of government.
🇩🇪
Germany recorded another 162,790 infections and 289 more pandemic deaths since Monday’s update.
It added another 2.037 COVID hospitalizations while ICU numbers (1,980) dipped slightly (-11). As a percentage of overall intensive care beds in the country coronavirus patients are taking up 9.1% of beds.
To date, 76.6% of the total population have one dose, 76.1% have two, and 59% have had a booster dose.
WHO/🌏/🦠
The World Health Organization is racing to figure out if a new batch of Omicron sub-variants poses any additional risk. The WHO is reviewing data on newly discovered BA.4 and BA.5 sub-variants to see if they are more infectious or are resistant to vaccines. While BA.2 dominates around the world accounting for 94% of global infection cases, according to the healthcare agency, BA.4 has been confirmed in South Africa, Denmark, Botswana, Scotland, and England so far. The new BA.5 variant has only been found in South Africa and Botswana.
🇨🇦
As a sixth infection rolls across Canada, COVID hospitalization numbers are marching back upward, almost across the board. In the week ending April 4, the total number of hospital beds occupied by a pandemic patient jumped from 4,248 up to 5,107. Of those, regular hospital admissions increased by 868 to 4,742 beds occupied. The number of ICU admissions was the only statistic to see a decline edging down from 374 to 365. The number of people on a ventilator rose going from 155 to 173.
Canada reported 4,963 infections and 15 more coronavirus deaths in the last day. Total to-date pandemic deaths have passed the 38,000 mark this week.
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So far the Canadian vaccination effort has administered 32,437,942 1st vaccine doses (84.84% of the total population) while 31,213,665 people (81.63%) have two doses, and of those 18,254,139 are fully vaccinated with three doses.
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“It is clear we are in a sixth wave.”
Ontario's Chief Medical Health Officer, Dr. Kieran Moore held his first COVID update press conference in more than a month on Monday. He says the hyper-infectious BA.2 variant has arrived and is driving the infection wave.
COVID hospitalizations in Ontario were at 1,090 as of Monday (-36 from last Thursday) with 184 (+25) of those patients in an ICU and 82 on a ventilator.
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COVID wastewater surveillance in the city of Saskatoon has come back with a pretty alarming result. Virus activity has increased by 742.9% compared to the weekly average from the week previous. 89% of the coronavirus activity has come back as the hyper-infectious BA.2 variant.
Wastewater testing results in other cities across the province also showed major coronavirus surges, up 250% in North Battleford, for example. This likely signals the arrival of a pretty significant infection wave.