The Evening Report - June 15
Denmark’s drought drags on. Bivalent booster doses offer strong protection.
☀️Drought☀️
🇩🇰
Municipalities across Denmark are beginning to enact fire bans as the country continues to endure a severe drought. There was some rainfall in parts of Denmark on Thursday morning, for the first time since May 23, but it was all too brief. One of the places that did not see any rain on Thursday was Copenhagen, which has recorded its 23rd straight day without rain. The Danish Meteorological Institute says that makes it the worst drought in Denmark’s capital in 28 years.
This week in some areas of Tinder dry Denmark a total burning ban is now in place. They include Esbjerg, Varde, and Fanø where smoking in public parks is now banned due to the fire risk as is lighting fires and any open flame in backyards and even the use of charcoal grills is now a no-no.
On Sjælland, Holbæk, Kalundborg, and Odsherred have also introduced burning bans. So no more barbecues, no lighting fires, and even the burning of weeds is forbidden. A burning ban is also now in force in the Tisvilde Hegn nature area.
You can also add the Lejre, Helsingør, and Sønderborg kommunes to those enacting fire bans.
The Danish islands of Bornholm, Samsø, Tunø, and Rømø have also levied full burning bans.
In Esbjerg, two people are already facing charges over violating the burning ban. They could face a fine of up to 5,000 Danish kroner (almost $1,000 Cdn)
🇸🇪
The wildfire risk is now deemed as “extremely high” in Sweden as the drought drags on and temperatures begin to push even higher. Many regions in are now introducing fire bans and banning charcoal and wood fires in public grilling areas in the most extreme risk (red) areas.
🦠Pandemic🦠
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COVID data continues to be throttled in Denmark. The Staten Serum Institute is now reducing how often it reports infection-related hospitalizations from daily to once a week. It is also tweaking the data it uses to calculate coronavirus hospital occupancy beginning next week. We will have to see what that means when they actually make the change on the 21st.
COVID hospitalizations in Denmark (97) continue to fall (-27) while the number of people in intensive care (4) and of those the number on a ventilator (1) are both unchanged week to week.
As has been the case for quite some time, vulnerable seniors continue to bear the brunt of infection-related hospitalizations. Over the last seven days, seniors over 65 accounted for 81% of all COVID admissions.
In the last week, Denmark has reported 184 new infections (wildly underreported) while suffering another 15 coronavirus deaths.
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Every June in Denmark the Folkemødet, or People’s Meeting, is held, usually on the island of Bornholm. Politicians, staff, government ministries, and various public agencies all attend in a noteworthy effort to bring Denmark’s democracy to the people. Politicians mingle with the public, debates on various issues will be held, and various talks and presentations will be conducted.
The Staten Serum Institute will host a number of debates, presentations, and workshops this year.
Director Henrik Ullum says debates and presentations will tackle questions like, Why were we all so sick this winter? Are we vaccinating too much? Will bird flu be the next big pandemic?
"Human history has been marked by pandemics, of which plague, cholera, tuberculosis, the Spanish flu, HIV/AIDS, and most recently COVID have been significant examples. We at SSI look forward to presenting and debating. And from the island of sunshine look a little into the pandemic crystal ball.”
🇸🇪
In Sweden, COVID hospitalizations (254) dropped (-31) while the number of severely infected people in an ICU (6) has crept upward (+3).
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The fall booster dose campaign provided strong protection to Sweden’s most vulnerable populations against severe infections resulting in hospitalization and death. That is according to a new study from the Swedish Public Health Agency.
The study focused on seniors in care, seniors receiving home care, and all seniors over 65. The agency found that compared with those who did not get boosted this fall the bivalent variant-specific booster doses gave vulnerable seniors 80% protection against hospitalization immediately after receiving a booster dose. Protection against dying from COVID increased to 90% within 30 days of getting the top-up shot.
Deputy Unit Head Johanna Rubin says in light of the study’s findings it makes it that much more alarming that a good number of vulnerable seniors have not had 2nd booster dose.
“The study shows that it is important that older people continue to take top-up doses against COVID in order to maintain high vaccination protection against serious illness and death. So far in the spring of 2023, just over half of the people in the group aged 80 and over have taken the recommended top-up dose, and that proportion would need to increase. Coronavirus is still spreading in society and we can count on it to continue during the summer as well.”
The Swedish Public Health Agency recommends that all seniors over 65 and anyone who is considered high-risk should get at least one if not two COVID vaccine booster shots every year.
🇳🇴
The Norwegian Public Institute of Health usually produces a bi-weekly COVID update and a new one is now overdue.
🇫🇮
Finland has registered 691 new infections and 136 more pandemic deaths in the last week.
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The Finnish healthcare system is wrestling with a pandemic hangover as wait lists for non-urgent procedures continue to grow. The Finnish Institute for Health says waiting lists have grown almost across the board for non-urgent specialized hospital treatment. There were more than 168,000 people on a waiting list for a variety of procedures at the end of April, an increase of around 15,000 patients since January.
Of those, 12.5%, or more than 21,000 people, have been waiting for treatment for more than half a year.
Development Manager Pia Tuominen:
"At the end of December 2022, more than 20,000 patients had been waiting for treatment in hospital districts for more than half a year. In April 2023, the number was approximately at the same level. However, the increase in the total number of people waiting for treatment can be explained by the increase in the number of referrals.”
Referrals have jumped by almost 16% so far this spring.
As an example, waiting lists for cataract surgery have grown to more than 13,000 people., of which 9.1% have been waiting for six months or more. More than 12,000 people are on knee or hip replacement surgery waiting lists, of those 23.4% have been waiting for half a year or more.
"The total number of people waiting for cataract surgery has remained high for a long time. The number of people waiting for knee or hip replacement surgery continued to grow this spring as well.”
The longest waiting lists are in the heavily populated Helsinki and Uusimaa Hospital District
The national health agency says with the pandemic eating up healthcare resources to deal with waves of coronavirus patients combined with a clear decrease in people seeking non-urgent treatment it has helped contribute to growing waiting lists.
🇪🇺
It looks like the EU COVID Certificate will soon cease to exist. The vaccine passport was introduced in June of 2021 to allow Europeans freedom of travel based on their vaccination status or recent negative test result. The European Union’s vaccine passport regulation is due to be automatically repealed as of June 30, removing any last basis for keeping the passport active.
🇨🇦
In its latest weekly update, the Public Health Agency of Canada has reported another 2,742 infections while another 51 Canadians lost their lives to the coronavirus.
The seven-day positivity percentage is 8.5%.
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It is a bit of a mixed bag on the COVID hospitalization front in Canada. The total number of beds in use by an infected patient dropped to 2,261, that is 126 fewer beds in use than the week prior. Infection-related general admissions fell by 131 to 2,166. But the number of severely infected people in an ICU edged upward from 90 to 95 from one week to the next. The number of people requiring a ventilator also crept upward, increasing by five to 63.
⚡️Energy & Environment🍃
🇪🇺 🇳🇴
Just a reminder that Europe’s energy crisis continues to bubble away just under the surface. Natural gas futures shot ups by 16% over the news that three major Norwegian natural gas facilities have confirmed outages to get maintenance work done. The gas fields will be offline until at least mid-July. Norway is now Europe’s largest supplier of natural gas as the EU works to sever all energy ties with Russia.
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Energy use dropped year over and in comparison to the year before the COVID pandemic struck. Statistics Denmark says there is also clear evidence of the energy transition away from fossil fuels and to more green energy sources. It says overall energy use by households and the industrial sector declined by 1.8% last year compared to 2021, and it was down 1.7% compared to pre-pandemic 2019.
The agency says the use of natural gas, petroleum products, and even electricity imports, all declined last year. At the same time, renewable energy use increased. For example, natural gas use among Danish households plummeted by 43.8% last year largely due to soaring prices and the energy crisis. Overall, energy use for heating homes last year was down by 4.2% compared to 2019.
From an energy use perspective, restaurants and hotels were hard hit in the first two years of the pandemic as power consumption increased by 7.2% last year. While the transportation sector saw year-over-year energy use increase it was still well below 2019 levels (-12.2%). The statistics agency attributes this to a passenger airline industry that was still in crisis last year as infection fears impacted passenger numbers.
2022 was a record year for renewable energy use in Denmark with green energy covering 45.6% of all power consumption in the country.
Interestingly, the statistics agency says surging electric vehicle sales are having an impact in Denmark with a significant decline in gas and diesel consumption for cars and trucks.
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Inflation in Sweden continues to slide. Statistics Sweden says inflation in May was 6.7% down from April’s 7.6%.
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Could a type of seaweed help in the fight against climate change? Danish researchers are attempting to find out. They have planted sugar seaweed in the coastal waters around Copenhagen and a little further up the coast from the city in Skovshoved. The first phase of the project has proven successful as the seaweed planted last autumn has survived the winter and continues to grow. The next phase will be to measure its potential for absorbing CO2, how much it can sequester, and where in Denmark it would make sense to foster future seaweed farms. Researchers are hoping to have a lot more answers to these questions by this fall.
🇺🇦/ 🇷🇺 War
🇩🇰 🇬🇧 🇪🇪 🇫🇮 🇮🇸 🇱🇻 🇱🇹 🇳🇴 🇸🇪 🇳🇱
Denmark and the nine other countries, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, and the United Kingdom, that make up the Joint Expeditionary Force are making a major arms donation to Ukraine. About $154 million will be used to fund weapons and equipment to significantly bolster Ukraine’s air defense capabilities. The money will come from a special International Fund for Ukraine that member nations have poured money into in order to secure long-term weapons shipments directly from the arms industry to Ukraine.
Acting Danish Defense Minister Troels Lund Poulsen spoke to Ritzau after a meeting of the JEF defense ministers in the Netherlands.
“A strengthened air defense is absolutely essential for Ukraine's ability to protect the civilian population and the critical infrastructure. But it is also crucial for the upcoming Ukrainian offensive against the Russian occupation troops.”
🇩🇰 🇺🇦
Acting Danish Defense Minister Troels Lund Poulsen has August circled on his calendar. That is when he hopes to begin Denmark’s training program to get Ukrainian pilots up to speed on flying F-16 fighter jets.
He spoke to Ritzau:
“My expectation is that during the summer we should be able to have all formal frameworks in place so that we can start training activities in August.”
Poulsen said he would hold back on getting any more specific until everything is in place.
Denmark is a member of a coalition of countries that have pledged to begin training Ukrainian pilots on flying F-16s. So far no country has committed to actually donating any of the fighter jets to Ukraine.
🇹🇷 🇸🇪
Turkey continues to play hardball with Sweden’s NATO application. Talks to try and break the Turkish impasse appear to have hit a wall. Turkey and Hungary are the only NATO member nations yet to ratify.
Sweden’s NATO negotiator Oscar Stenström came out of the latest talks and poured cold water on the idea that Sweden could join the military alliance by this summer,
“It is my job to convince the other party that we have done enough. And I think we have. But Turkey is not ready to make a decision and believes they need more answers to the questions they have.”
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg continues to emphasize that Sweden has fulfilled every NATO admission criteria. But, he adds, Turkey remains dissatisfied with its own demands that lie outside that.
“Some progress has been made and we will continue to work on it.”
For his part, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been quoted by Reuters as saying that Turkey will continue to block Sweden’s NATO membership as long as "terrorists" are allowed to protest in the streets of Stockholm.
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After Sweden’s highest court approved the extradition of a 35-year-old Turkish man back to Turkey the Swedish government approved the extradition. The man an acknowledged supporter of the Kurdish terrorist group the PKK will go back to Turkey to serve the rest of a prison term for drug crimes. The man has been fighting the extradition saying the Turkish government really wants him back because he actively supports the PKK.
Sweden brought a new anti-terror law into force a few weeks ago. The law was enacted to help address Turkey’s claims that Sweden is harbouring terrorists as it continues to block the Nordic nation’s NATO membership.
🇺🇸 🇭🇺
The United States is publicly getting tough on Hungary for continuing to block Sweden’s NATO bid. The Washington Post is reporting that a top Republican has put the brakes on a $735 million (USD) arms sale to Hungary because of the games it is playing with Sweden’s NATO application.
Senator Jim Risch, who sits on the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee said this week that based on the promises Hungary has made, and appears to now be breaking, to support Sweden’s NATO application the sale of all American military equipment to Hungary will now remain on hold.
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Germany has joined a growing list of NATO member countries that have suddenly become determined to spend 2% of GDP on defense. Over the years NATO member nations have generally paid lip service to the request from the military alliance. Then Russia invaded Ukraine and suddenly a new urgency to meet the target was born.
In tabling its defense strategy, Germany pledged to bolster defense spending from the current 1.5% neighborhood up to 2%.
🇸🇪
Swedish prosecutors investigating the sabotage of the Nord Stream 2 pipelines hope to complete their work by this fall.
Prosecutor Mats Ljungqvist who is heading up the investigation spoke to Radio Sweden:
“I hope that by autumn we will at least be able to make a decision regarding charges. At least that is the ambition as things stand right now.”
Ljungqvist also added that he has met with his German counterpart leading Germany’s investigation but wouldn’t share any more details.
He says the hope is that the investigations will help reveal a likely culprit.
“I actually think that, in time, light will be shed on the matter.”
🇪🇺🇩🇪🇵🇱🇸🇪
Almost four million Ukrainian refugees who fled after the Russian invasion are availing themselves of temporary protection status in Europe as of April 30. That is according to the European statistics agency EuroStat. Germany has the largest share of Ukrainians with 1,090,235 refugees or 28% of all Ukrainians who fled the war. Poland trails just behind with 25%, or just under a million Ukrainians.
EuroStat says the overall number of Ukrainians seeking protection in Europe has increased (+1.3%) from month to month. Sweden is one of the countries reporting the largest increase (+35%) but this is likely due to a bureaucratic wrinkle over a delay in its process to renew temporary protection statuses. The agency says 82% of all Ukrainian refugees are women and children.
🇫🇷/ 🇷🇺
A complex Russian disinformation network has been exposed in France according to the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It says the campaign was coordinated by the Russian state through Russian embassies to push fake news about the war in Ukraine using a complex network of social media disinformation and fake websites that were made to closely imitate national media organizations and even French government sites, including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The ministry says it is working closely with allies to combat Russia’s hybrid warfare as it seeks to sow division and push its narrative through misinformation and propaganda.