The Evening Report - Mar 31
More Danish troops head to the Baltics. COVID concerns in Norway and Finland
🇺🇦/ 🇷🇺 War
🇩🇰/ NATO 🇱🇻
Less than 48 hours after Danish Statsminister Mette Frederiksen said 800 soldiers were standing by and ready to be deployed to NATO forces in the Baltics the military alliance has officially requested the battalion. NATO wants troops deployed to Latvia to shore up defensive lines there. The transfer is troops is now waiting on approval from the Danish Folketing (Parliament).
Minister of Defense Morten Bødskov:
“Russia's brutal and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine poses a threat to our common European security. Therefore, the government is ready to meet NATO's desire to send a Danish combat battalion to the Baltics. It will help show Putin that our Western alliance is strong.”
Denmark’s Defense Command says preparations will begin to deploy the troops, with the soldiers likely shipping out for Latvia sometime in May.
Denmark’s Prime Minister and leaders of the five parties were in the Baltics on Thursday meeting with their Baltic counterparts, touring NATO facilities, and meeting some of the troops.
Mette Frederiksen:
“I am grateful for the broad support for NATO cooperation. And to offer to strengthen NATO's preparedness with 800 Danish soldiers in Latvia. When we send Danish soldiers out into the world to protect our country and our security, it is absolutely crucial that we do it together across political lines.”
🇳🇴/ 🇺🇦
Norway has shipped more weapons to Ukraine to help in its battle against Russia. The Norwegian Armed Forces said in a press release on Thursday that another 2,000 M72 light anti-armour weapons are being donated to Ukraine.
Minister of Defense Odd Roger Enoksen:
“Ukraine has asked for military equipment since the beginning of the invasion in order to defend themselves against Russian forces that attack both civilian and military targets. Norway has, alongside other countries, answered these pleas with an additional delivery of anti-armour weapons that can be deployed against Russian forces. Ukraine depends on weapons offered by other countries to continue their resistance against Russia’s unlawful attack. If Ukraine succeeds, it will not only secure Ukrainian independence but also contribute to uphold the norm of peaceful conflict resolution and respect for European borders.”
Norway had previously sent a shipment of 2,000 anti-tank weapons to Ukraine, so this latest batch of weapons pushes the total to date number to 4,000. This is alongside other military supplies and medical donations.
🇸🇪/ 🇫🇮
Finland’s President, Sauli Niinistö tweeted today that “the intense discussion continues” as he had a conversation with Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson today. Niinistö didn’t elaborate on what the two talked about, but the Russia/Ukraine situation would be a given. The two countries are also closely aligned, so one wonders if the do we or don’t we join NATO situation was on the table.
In Finland, public opinion has swung sharply in favour of joining NATO and it looks like a parties making up a majority in parliament also back joining the military alliance.
In Sweden, it is also a political hot potato, with Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson choosing her words carefully in saying it is something that cannot be ruled out.
🇩🇰/ 🇬🇪 🇷🇺
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has lit several other geopolitical powderkegs. One is the breakaway state of Transnistria in Moldova. Transnistria is pro-Russia and has been trying to leverage the Ukraine crisis to get Russia to officially recognize the state as independent.
The other area of speaking enough concern is Georgia, which is dealing with the pro-Russia breakaway region of South Ossetia. Denmark’ Foreign Affairs Minister Jeppe Kofod and six other members of parliament have jumped on a plane for Georgia to discuss a common defense strategy.
“Georgia is a country that is strongly exposed to the pressure that Russia is putting on Europe now with the aggression against Ukraine. For many years there have been Russian soldiers in the breakaway republic of South Ossetia, here in Georgia, on Georgian territory. It means a lot to them that they can see that Europe is also concerned with creating security here.”
The invasion of Ukraine has sparked alarm bells in Georgia, which shares its northern border with Russia.
The South Ossetia region wants a referendum to allow it to breakaway from Georgia and be incorporated into Russia. Russia recognizes South Ossetia, located in the South Caucasus, as an independent state and has deployed thousands of troops in the region. Most other countries continue to consider South Ossetia as part of Georgia.
🦠Pandemic🦠
🇩🇰
The COVID indicators both unreliable (infection numbers) and reliable (hospitalizations, wastewater testing, etc) continue to indicate a gradually easing epidemic situation. This is according to the latest weekly deep dive into data from the Staten Serum Institut.
The SSI says overall COVID-related admissions continued to decline, falling by 20% last week to 1,172 hospitalizations. The declines were seen across all age groups from week to week. Seniors aged 70 to 79 years old continue to make up the largest number of COVID patients.
Things look slightly different when you break the numbers down by people being admitted due to a coronavirus infection and those with infections but who were admitted for another reason. The proportion of those hospitalized because of an infection increased by two percentage points from week 9 to week 10 (44% to 46%). In week 10, 51% of hospitalizations due to a coronavirus infection were people 60 years old and older.
The institute says it has been dealing with some data issues over the last week and because of that, intensive care numbers, especially COVID-specific patient breakdowns, are not available this week.
COVID fatalities dropped from 229 in week 11 to 190 last week. The decreases can also be seen in excess mortality rates (deaths in a given period measured against the average deaths in the same period in previous years). The data issues the SSI has been struggling with also impacted this week’s assessment of deaths directly due to COVID and people who were infected but died for other reasons. Those numbers are also not available this week. That said, the agency notes, the proportion of deaths because of a coronavirus infection has been increasing.
Another more reliable pandemic barometer is COVID wastewater testing. The institute says virus activity “flattened” at the national level last week. However, the SSI notes that looking at the different regions, coronavirus rates dropped in Region Midtjylland and Region Nordjylland while activity was either stable or increasing slightly in the other three regions.
Looking at COVID case numbers, which are now extremely unreliable due to a steep decline in testing numbers and a changed testing strategy, infections continued to fall. The COVID incidence rate per 100,000 people slipped to 603 last week. The positivity percentage also decreased from 29% in week 11 to 24% last week. PCR testing also dropped by another 12% last week as average daily testing numbers dropped below the 30,000 mark.
North Jutland has the highest positivity percentage of the five Danish regions with 28.5% followed by Region Midtjylland with 28.2%. Looking at the COVID incidence rate per 100,000 people, it is Region Syddanmark that has the highest with 717. That said, the SSI notes the incidence rate declined across all five regions.
Looking at cases by age group, seniors 70 to 79 years old have the highest incidence rate per 100,000 people with 990, followed by 60 to 69 year olds with 916. Again, the COVID incidence rate declined across all age groups.
COVID cases among seniors in care continue to ease, dropping from 976 infections in week 11 to 668 last week. Last week, 65 seniors in nursing homes lost their battle with coronavirus, which is lower than the 93 who passed the week before.
On the variant front, it continues to be BA.2 that is absolutely dominating. The Omicron sub-variant was responsible for “about 99%” of all sequenced positive tests last week. Keep in mind as testing falls, so does the number of positive tests that get sequenced. So we are getting a very partial picture now.
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In Denmark, COVID hospitalizations (1,162) have dropped (-27) while the number of severe infections in an ICU (24) has crept up (+2) and of those the number on a ventilator (7) edged down (-1). #COVID admissions to a psych ward (336) inched down (-5).
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The Staten Serum Institut updates the results of COVID testing of blood donor samples up to week 11. In that week, 56% of all adults who donated blood came back positive for COVID antibodies. The SSI says if you add those numbers into projection models, an estimated 69% of the adult Danish population has had a coronavirus infection since Omicron arrived last November.
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Denmark has reported 3,931 COVID infections (underreported), including 229 reinfections, and 30 more coronavirus deaths in the last day.
The Staten Serum Institut is only reporting “approximately” 20,000 PCR tests in the last 24 hours due to a reporting issue over the last few days. That equals a positivity percentage of approximately 19.65%, but take that number with a grain of salt until we get firmer daily testing numbers in the days ahead.
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The Danish Health Data Authority has deactivated the Denmark portion of the coronapas as it is no longer required for anything anywhere in the country. The EU COVID Digital Certificate side of the app will remain active for travel purposes both in, and outside of, Europe.
This is what you see when you open the coronpas app.
The coronapas had been required until now to enter hospitals and nursing homes but the Danish Epidemic Commission has now determined those local requirements are no longer needed and they have been lifted. This makes the coronapas redundant for use in Denmark.
Health Minister Magnus Heunicke:
“Since May of 2021, the coronapas app has been a crucial tool that has helped to reduce the risk of infection in gatherings and other situations where it could otherwise be an issue. The coronapas have been the prerequisite for us to be able to keep society as open as much as possible. The fact that we can now close the Danish part of the coronapas app is a testament to everyone who has used it, and to the partners in business and culture who have helped to develop and refine the tool.”
The Danish Health Ministry notes the app can be reactivated very quickly should the pandemic situation in Denmark take another turn for the worse.
The coronapas has been downloaded over 4.6 million times since its launch, which covers most of the adult population in Denmark. The app was also the recent winner of the 2022 Digitization Award.
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On the vaccination front, the numbers remain static with just 254 booster doses administered yesterday.
To date, 82.3% of the total population have one vaccine dose, 80.8% have two, and 61.5% have a booster shot.
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Influenza rates continued to shoot upward last week, but the number of new cases was much less than seen in the week previous. For five weeks flu cases in Denmark have been doubling weekly. But the Staten Serum Institut said that wasn’t the case last week.
The SSI says there were 2,647 confirmed influenza infections last week, a 22% increase from the week before. But that is much lower than the 111% growth in flu cases seen from week 10 to 11. Flu-related hospital admissions also rose last week, increasing by 19% but again that increase was much lower than the 95% jump in the previous two week span.
Ward Doctor Rebecca Legarth:
“Although we are testing significantly more for influenza this season than in previous seasons, we must expect that there is a large number of cases of influenza, as far as everyone who gets symptoms is tested. Although the number of detected cases of influenza is at a much higher level than in previous seasons, there are signs that the flu curve has begun to decline, although it continues to rise."
The SSI says spikes in the number of influenza infections were seen mostly in Metro Copenhagen, Region Sjælland, and Region Syddanmark.
The institute is anticipating that flu cases will continue to increase in the coming weeks but then ease off. It also cautions that this flu season is so unusual that it is pure guess work anticipating what might come. Current flu activity is now higher than any previous influenza season going back to 2015.
🇸🇪
Sweden has added 6,116 infections (wildly underreported) and 176 corona deaths since its last update last Thursday.
To date, 87% of the population 12 years old and older have one dose, 84.8% have two, and of those 18 years old and older 62.8% have a booster shot.
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The Swedish Public Health Agency’s latest weekly COVID snapshot has found infection numbers are continuing to fall. That said, the agency continues to admit the “dark figure” or the number of cases not detected by testing, is considerable due to the agency’s own strategy of limiting testing to seniors in care and those who are hospitalized. It is worth noting the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control has “greyed out” Sweden because its testing numbers are so low it cannot with any accuracy determine its COVID situation.
Sweden’s national health agency says the number of confirmed COVID cases fell by 17% last week. It says there were 35,079 corona tests taken last week resulting in a positivity percentage of 17%. Again, take these numbers with a large grain of salt.
Like in other countries in the Nordics and across Europe, in Sweden the BA.2 variant dominates.
Deputy Head of Department Sara Byfors is urging people to get vaccinated.
“Although vaccination coverage is generally high in the population, there are still over one million people over the age of 12 who have not been vaccinated. To reduce the risk of new infection waves and the serious consequences that people will suffer from getting infected, more people need to get vaccinated.”
Overall pandemic deaths have dropped. The virus claimed 198 lives in week 10, compared to an average of 314 pandemic deaths in each of the three preceding weeks. COVID fatalities have also decreased among seniors in care and those receiving home care, two highly vaccinated populations. There was a combined 27 COVID deaths in the two groups, a drop of 36% week to week.
The health agency says there were 15 COVID admissions to intensive care units last week but added the number is likely “slightly higher” due to reporting delays.
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As of Friday, April 1, Sweden will remove the designation that COVID is a “generally dangerous and socially dangerous disease.” Two parliamentary acts, the Pandemic Acr and the Temporary Infection Control Act, will also both be abolished. The bills gave the Swedish Riksdag (Parliament) special powers to manage the epidemic.
But the Swedish Public Health Agency is warning people that the pandemic is not over.
Director Karin Tegmark Wisell:
“The coronavirus is not gone. It is still a pandemic and we must all continue to ensure that we can live with it in a balanced way.”
While Sweden returns to near normal and disarms its COVID protection measures, infection numbers are rising in Europe again.
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Sweden’s pandemic response strategy is being put back under the microscope again. This time the Swedish government is on the hot seat as a special Riksdag (Parliament) Constitution Committee investigates the relationship between the government and the country’s COVID Commission. The committee will call a number of people on both sides to testify, with the COVID Commission’s Chair and General Secretary first up according to a report from SVT.
Reports of a rocky relationship between the government and the commission have surfaced in the past. Opposition parties are claiming that the government was deliberately obscuring information requested by the commission in order to help manage the pandemic.
The government’s failed pandemic strategy has been put under two other intense reviews to date. Both resulted in what could be charitably described as less than favorable conclusions about Sweden’s pandemic response.
🇳🇴
Norway has added 3,980 infections and another 179 pandemic deaths since Tuesday’s report.
Norge no longer reports COVID hospitalization numbers.
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Unpredictable. That is how the Norwegian Institute of Public Health is describing the COVID epidemic in the weeks and months ahead. In its latest pandemic risk assessment, it warns the winter COVID wave seems to be returning. While new admissions have fallen from 545 to 345 in the last four weeks and ICU numbers have also dropped, the NIPH notes the BA.2 variant is driving numbers back up across Europe. The Omicron sub-strain is almost totally dominant in Norway.
Director Camilla Stoltenberg:
“As the situation looks now, society can continue with normal everyday life without special infection control measures against COVID. At the same time, we have reason to expect a new infection wave, probably in the autumn or winter, but we may also see a new wave of a new variant already in the summer. It is also possible that the epidemic will continue at a medium level right through the summer.”
Stoltenberg warns any new COVID infection wave could be complicated by surging influenza numbers creating a concerning one two punch for hospitals. She says hospitals should brace for the worst and people should prepare for the possibility of another major infection wave to come especially if a nasty new variant arrives. The NIPH warns that while COVID restrictions are gone for now, there could be a situation coming where they may have to be reintroduced.
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The Norwegian Institute for Public Health is warning hospitals to brace for a major influx of influenza patients in April.
Doctor Trine Hessevik Paulsen:
“There was an unusually low level of influenza in Norway until week 10, when there was a marked increase in influenza cases.”
The NIPH says there were 1,179 confirmed influenza cases last week, equaling a positivity percentage of 11.4%. The most commonly detected strain is H3N2, which is bad news as it is a slightly changed strain meaning even less immunity among the population.
The agency says there has been a corresponding increase in flu-related hospitalizations as case numbers have mounted. Last week, influenza was responsible for 135 hospitalizations. The institute says it is expecting that number to keep increasing in the coming days.
The NIPH is cautioning that because this explosion of influenza cases is happening much later than ever seen before, and because it’s coming after two years of a near absence of influenza seasons, this is a volatile situation. At this point, the agency says it cannot guess when infections might peak or how extensive this late outbreak will become. All things considered, it says, increasing flu numbers in the coming weeks are almost a certainty. The NIPH is hoping the seasonal effect as we temperatures warm-up will help put a lid on the influenza outbreak
The NIPH says its latest influenza risk assessment warns that hospitals and municipalities should brace for a pretty torrid flu season in April. It urges local governments to be ready to deal with the flu storming through nursing home populations.
Alongside much-reduced immunity due to virtually no exposure to the seasonal flu over the last two years, the NIPH also has another major concern. It says far to few people have had influenza vaccinations. For people under the age of 40, the flu shot uptake is under 40%. Among children with conditions making them a high influenza risk, a mere 8% have had a flu shot. Just 64% of seniors over 65 have had an influenza vaccination.
🇫🇮
Finland has registered 9,541 infections and another 39 virus deaths since yesterday’s update.
COVID hospitalizations (1,065) are unchanged.
To date, 80.2% of the total population have one dose, 76.8% have two, and 51.2% have a booster dose.
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The COVID pandemic shows no sign of abating. That is how the Finnish Institute for Health begins its latest weekly pandemic assessment. It warns hospitals across Finland remain strained as infections stretch capacity. It says the number of infection patients continued to rise in the two week period up until March 23, with 542 COVID admissions. That compares to 466 in the previous two week period. It says about one-third of COVID-related admissions are people who are infected but are being hospitalized for a non-pandemic reason. In the same two week period, there were 76 intensive care admissions, up from the 30 to 40 seen in previous weeks.
COVID wastewater testing continues to show a high level of virus activity.
There have been 275 pandemic deaths in the last two weeks, of which 252 (91.6%) were seniors over the age of 70. The median age among all COVID deaths in Finland is 83 years old.
The institute urges people to get vaccinated and to take every precaution to minimize their infection risk. This includes staying home when sick, minimizing close contact when possible, and using self-testing kits to screen for infection.
🇩🇪
Germany has recorded 274,901 new infections and 279 more virus deaths since yesterday’s update.
It added another 2,332 COVID hospitalizations while ICU numbers (2,332) were down (-42).
To date, 76.6% of the total population have one dose, 76% have two doses, and 58.7% have a booster dose.
🇪🇺🦠
The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control has released its latest map illustrating COVID risk levels around the European Union. It is important to note that both Norway and Sweden have been greyed out because the ECDC says testing rates in both countries have fallen to equal to or less than 600 people per 100,000 population.
Canada reported 6,880 COVID infections (underreported) while suffering another 34 pandemic deaths on Wednesday. The national positivity percentage over the last seven days is 16%.
So far the Canadian vaccination effort has administered 32,324,135 1st vaccine doses (84.54% of the total population) while 31,166,766 people (81.51%) have a 2nd dose, and of those, 18,122,804 people are fully vaccinated with three doses.
In Ontario, a 6th COVID wave has arrived as cases rise and hospitalizations (807) rocket upward (+146) while the number of severe infections in intensive care (166) has crept up (+1). There were 6 more pandemic deaths. The province has a positivity percentage of 17.13%.
Quebec saw hospitalizations (1,238) rise (+176) while the number of severe infections in an ICU (66) increased (+6). There were 12 more corona deaths. The province has a positivity percentage of 16.71%, a week-over week increase.
Newfoundland and Labrador are seeing COVID cases surge again as hospitalizations also rise. It has 40 COVID patients in hospital, an increase of 11, with 11 people in an ICU, an increase of eight. The province has seven more deaths.
In Nova Scotia hospitalizations (51) are up (+9) with 11 people in an ICU (-2). The province has suffered 10 more corona deaths.
New Brunswick saw hospitalizations (142) jump (+13) while ICU numbers (8) dropped (-8). The province saw 13 more pandemic deaths. Its hospitals are at 90% occupancy.
Manitoba has changed how it reports COVID hospital data only reporting new admissions and not overall hospitalizations. This makes it impossible to say if hospitalizations are up or down in these weekly reports. Over the last week, it had 111 new COVID admissions, 16 of which were to an intensive care unit. There were eight new pandemic deaths. The province has a five-day positivity percentage of 13.9%.
Saskatchewan suffered 20 more corona deaths. The province has 324 people hospitalized (+18) with 21 in an ICU (+2).
COVID hospitalizations in Alberta (964) are up (+8) while the number of people in an ICU (47) declined (-6). There have been 30 more corona deaths.
B.C. saw COVID hospitalizations (281) rise (+26) while the number of people with severe infections in an ICU (42) dropped (-10). There has been two more pandemic deaths. The province has a positivity percentage of 7%.