The Evening Report - April 22nd
Denmark tweaks its vaccination strategy to prioritize first doses
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There is labor strife in Denmark’s healthcare sector.
The Danish Nurses Council has issued strike notice after rejecting the latest contract offer. Chair of the Danish Nurses Council (Dansk Sygeplejeråd) Grete Christensen says nurses and other female led professions are paid 15-20% less than male professions.
Christensen says this goes beyond negotiating with the employer. The only solution now lies with the government.
"Our demand for the employers is a greater wage recognition to the nurses, and that we send a joint appeal from the parties to the collective agreement to Christiansborg about tripartite negotiations, where the parties jointly commit to work to catch up with the nurses' historical wage backlog.”
She says the pandemic has highlighted to nurses their value and the tough job they do.
"It has been a difficult year for nurses. During the corona pandemic, many nurses have stood on the front line and have been pushed to the limit. Nevertheless, against all odds, they have made an extraordinary effort and shown great flexibility. With that in mind the latest contract offer is a great disappointment for many.”
The Nurses union has issued rotating strike notice for 10% of its members effective midnight on May 20th if a deal is not reached by then.
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The Danish National Health Board is extending the period between the first and second vaccination dose from three to six weeks.
DR is reporting Health Board Director General Søren Brostrøm made the move in order to better utilize a limited number of vaccine doses to more quickly get everyone over 50 a first vaccination shot. Brostrøm says one dose offers enough immunity to help bend down the infection curve and get Denmark reopened.
Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has stated previously that, “when everyone over 50 has been vaccinated, we can in principle have an open Denmark.”
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The good news on the variant front is that there has been no explosive growth in any of the variants of concern in Denmark recently. The U.K. variant remains by far the most dominate coronavirus mutation in the country with over 90% of all sequenced positive tests.
The number of cases of the further mutated U.K. variant with the E484K ‘escape’ mutation remains at eight. According to the Staten Serum Institut there have been a total of 721 infections involving a strain with the E484K mutation. The escape mutation helps the virus evade the body’s defenses and there is some concern it could impact vaccine efficacy. It can be found in the Brazilian P1, the further mutated U.K. variant, and the B.1.525, and B.1.351 strains.
Among the 721 total infections involving a strain with the E484K mutation there were 39 cases where the virus had the mutation but was not one of the known variants.
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Denmark is reporting 893 COVID infections and two more coronavirus deaths in the last day.
Yesterday 573,168 total corona tests were done, 206,272 PCR and 366,896 rapid, for a (PCR only) positivity percentage of 0.43%.
COVID hospitalizations (191) are unchanged while the number of infected people in an ICU (44) crept up (+3), Of those, the number on a ventilator (24) also inched up (+2).
Metro Copenhagen continues to have the most hospitalizations.
On the vaccination campaign to date, 1,142,046 1st dose vaccinations (19.5% of the population) have been administered while 549,173 people (9.4%) are now fully vaccinated.
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The Danish Agency for Patient Safety says contact tracing teams continue to have success in reaching people who have tested positive. The contact tracers try to get information about the infected person’s possible contacts and where and how they think they might have become infected.
The agency says over the last seven days they have been unable to reach just 1.77% (the light blue line below) of those infected. This despite efforts by phone, eBoks, text message, and occasionally, with the help of police.
As for where people are contracting Corona, the big three culprits continue to be at home, by friends and family, or at work.
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A request by the Danish Sports Federation to have Olympic athletes get priority vaccinations is not getting a warm reception. The federation is concerned Danish athletes won’t be vaccinated in time for the summer Olympics in Tokyo. DR reports that the Social Democrats' culture spokesman, Kasper Sand Kjær, is closing the door on the idea.
“If we give priority to groups such as Olympic athletes, there will suddenly be a demand for all sorts of other groups, who think they must be at the front of the vaccine queue for one reason or another.”
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In other virus news, there has been a bird flu outbreak in West Jutland. The Danish Emergency Management Agency is on site culling some 19,000 ducks and geese on the impacted farm in Vinderup near Holstebro. This is the 15th outbreak of the highly contagious virus in the country since November.
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Sweden has added 7,736 infections and another 19 corona deaths since yesterday’s update.
To date, 2,010,951 1st dose (24.6% of the population) and 700,650 2nd vaccination doses (8.6%) have been administered.
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Citing a persisting infection threat and a health care system that is “very strained”, the Swedish Public Health Agency has recommended holding off on easing any COVID restrictions until at least May 17th. Some of the current restrictions were due to expire.
The health agency says it will submit a proposal “shortly” for tightening restrictions in the trades, at sports facilities, art galleries, museums, and in restaurants in order to ensure limited contacts to curb infection spread.
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A day after Norway sent 16,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine to Iceland, it is now sending some to Sweden as well. 200,000 AstraZeneca doses will be shipped to Sweden from Norway’s stockpile after a decision to abandon use of the vaccine due to the risk of rare, but serious, side effects.
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Norway has added 821 infections and one more virus death since yesterday’s update.
COVID hospitalizations (201) have fallen (-13), ICU numbers (68) have also dropped (-6), while ventilator numbers (42) slipped as well (-2).
To date 21.20% of Norwegians have had a first vaccination dose while 5.65% have had both.
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Finland has registered 280 infections and three more coronavirus deaths since yesterday’s update as its numbers continue to drop.
COVID hospitalizations (129) have declined (-13), while ICU numbers (37) have crept up (+2).
To date, 1,430,756 1st dose (25.7% of the population) and 140,223 2nd vaccine doses (2.5%) have been administered.
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So far so good. The Finnish Institute of Health (THL) says virtually every metric shows the infection situation in Finland is improving but it warns a misstep now could easily lead to another explosion of cases.
The agency says the number of infections has declined for the past five weeks. Infections rates are dropping. Hospitalizations are also declining and are forecast to continue doing so. The health institute credits the current lockdown restrictions, especially the closure of pubs and restaurants, in driving down the numbers.
It also says the vaccination campaign is helping too, with over 85% of people over the age of 70 in Finland having at least one dose.
However, THL says there are still regional differences. Southern Finland is still hardest hit but number of infections in the Helsinki and Uusimaa hospital districts are dropping.
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It is clear the European Union has had enough of AstraZeneca. It has refused to exercise its option for another 100-million doses of the vaccine. The vaccine maker has infuriated E.U. authorities by continually failing to meet delivery targets. There are also reports today that the E.U. Commission may, in fact, be preparing to launch a lawsuit against the vaccine maker.
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A European Union vaccine passport took another step closer to becoming a reality today. E.U. member states have agreed on technical specifications that will ensure the digital or paper passport can be read and verified across the trading bloc. It also furthers the set up of the E.U. gateway, which will allow the sharing of electronic signature keys to authenticate each vaccine passport.
On the political side, a vote on the ‘digital green certificate’ is expected to happen soon.
The E.U. has promised to have a vaccine passport up and running across all 27 member states by June.
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The Prime Minister of the German state of Saxony, Michael Kretschmer, tweeted today that Germany is in negotiations with Russia for 30-million doses of the Sputnik V vaccine. Kretschmer says, if successful, the COVID vaccine would arrive in ten-million dose shipments in June, July, and August. Though he says Germany will wait for European Medicines Agency approval of the Russian vaccine, this marks the first time Germany has tried to purchase vaccine doses outside the European Union bulk purchasing framework.
Outbreak numbers jumped upward in Germany yesterday with 27,595 new infections and 299 more virus deaths. ICU admissions are also climbing.
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Yesterday Canada reported 8,421 infections and 51 coronavirus deaths.
On the vaccination campaign to date, 9,845,852 1st vaccine doses (25.91% of the population) have been administered while 952,298 people are now fully vaccinated.
As for Ontario today, Health Minister Christine Elliott tweeted “Ontario is reporting 3,682 cases of COVID19 and over 54,200 tests completed. Locally, there are 1,131 new cases in Toronto, 507 in Peel, 436 in York Region, 279 in Ottawa and 200 in Durham. As of 8:00 p.m. yesterday, 4,266,802 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have been administered.” There were also 40 more deaths.
Quebec is reporting 1,248 infections and seven more corona deaths today.
In Atlantic Canada, Nova Scotia has registered 38 new infections, the highest daily total since April of 2020. Newfoundland and Labrador had three. New Brunswick has yet to report.
Manitoba had 164 new infections and one death yesterday. The province is opening vaccinations up for frontline health workers, people 50 and older, and grocery store workers.
There were 231 infections and four more deaths in Saskatchewan yesterday.
Due to a technical issue, Alberta released limited numbers yesterday reporting 1,699 infections. No deaths were included in the numbers. Alberta has joined B.C. and Saskatchewan in legislating paid time off for workers to get vaccinated.
B.C. reported 862 infections and seven more virus deaths yesterday. There are 483 people in hospital and 164 in an ICU.
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Words cannot describe how horrific the situation in India is right now. News reports and video coming out of the country are gut wrenchingly awful. Yesterday it saw a record high number of new infections and its deadliest day yet with with 315,802 new COVID cases and 2,102 more lives lost.
