In warning to U.S., COVID rates soar after Denmark lifts all restrictions

[AZLD4Candidate]

Last edited Wed Feb 16, 2022, 07:54 PM - Edit history (1)

Source: Yahoo via AOL News

At the beginning of February, Denmark became the first major country to lift the last of its COVID-19 restrictions and effectively declare its part in the pandemic over.

Around the world, and especially in the United States, Denmark’s “liberation” from indoor mask mandates, vaccine passports and nightclub closures was heralded as a watershed moment — the shape of things to come. Democratic governors across the U.S. started rescinding their own mask rules a few days later.

“This marks the transition to a new era for all of us, because Denmark will once again be an open society, completely open,” said Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen. “We dare to believe that we are now through the critical phase."

Since then, however, Denmark has continued to record more COVID-19 cases per capita than nearly anywhere else in the world, and both COVID hospitalizations and deaths have shot up by about a third.

Read more: https://www.aol.com/news/warning-u-covid-rates-soar-183342110.html

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Wow . . . talk about an entirely predictable result.

[dchill]

1. What does ANYBODY expect?

Not enough people got vaccinated.

[Texaswitchy]

6. Yep.

We could have been over this s long ago.

People are tired of wearing masks.

So the virus will go up.and down.

[Chellee]

16. Not in Denmark.

"...since so many Danes are vaccinated — 82 percent overall (including 95 percent of those over 50, 90 percent of whom have also been boosted)..."

[Delphinus]

33. Hmm ...

I wonder why then? I'm guessing this is the stealth Omicron, B.A2 (not sure how to write that). Any medical professionals weighing in on this yet?

[Chellee]

34. Yes, it is that variant.

According to the article, they were expecting it, and deemed it an acceptable amount of risk. If we do the same, 200-250,000 Americans will die every year from covid. Which we probably will. And we'll ignore it, just like we ignore the 12-52,000 people who die of the flu every year.

Here in Indiana, 75% of the people are not wearing masks, about 1/2 have not been vaccinated and don't intend to be, they're back to "normal" because they're "over it."

We missed our window. The time to get this under control was spring of 2020, and we all know how that went. Now it's just a hard slog, probably for the next decade. Hopefully, we develop better treatments, and Congress sees the wisdom of sending vaccines to developing countries to cut down on variants. Otherwise...

[Delphinus]

37. Hey,

I'm in Indiana too! And sadly I agree with all that you say.

[Larissa]

41. This! Hong Kong faces worst outbreak of the Pandemic

By the way, low vaccine rates in the elderly has been noted to be a cause of the large outbreak that Hong Kong is currently experiencing.

PBS: Hong Kong faces its worst outbreak of the Pandemic
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/hong-kong-faces-its-worst-outbreak-of-the-pandemic-even-as-sticks-with-zero-covid-strategy

Hong Kong is facing its worst outbreak of the pandemic, topping 2,000 new COVID-19 cases each day this week. The city government has already instituted strict rules banning gatherings of more than two households.

Thousands of people in the city have tested positive for COVID-19 and are waiting to be admitted into hospitals or isolation facilities, said Dr. Sara Ho, the chief manager for patient safety and risk management at the Hong Kong Hospital Authority.

[Lonestarblue]

2. I will just keep wearing my mask when I'm out. Covid isn't done with us yet.

[AZLD4Candidate]

5. Never will be. Viruses are unpredictable in their mutations

Remember, we have no cure for the common cold.

We can only hope it becomes endemic like colds and the flu, so we can begin to see things like "Robatussin: Cold, Flu, and COVID"

[Blues Heron]

39. we got rid of smallpox and polio and whooping cough etc.

we can get this one to if people would just do their part. Im not buying the defeatism although i see that talking point A LOT.

[AZLD4Candidate]

40. Whooping cause is a bacteria

Polio still exists

Smallpox had an easily broken genome.

We still have no cure to the flu, HIV, or the common cold.

[Ms. Toad]

59. Polio exists in three countries. In the entire world. n/t

[BlueWavePsych]

53. +1 "Robatussin: Cold, Flu, and COVID"

Priceless.

[aeromanKC]

3. I'm shocked. Shocked I tell you!!

[RKP5637]

4. Like DUH, now how could anyone begin to think that might happen. As Ron White says:

"You Can't Fix Stupid"

[SheltieLover]

7. BA.2 ramping up

https://www.ama-assn.org/delivering-care/public-health/what-ba2-or-stealth-omicron-subvariant

[AZLD4Candidate]

8. Who cares? Those are just doctors and scientists

Social Media sources, right wing pundits, and people who have never been to medical school have real truth.

These "medical people" all have an agenda. Stop Fauci-ing my Florida, Mr. Scientist!!!

[Ace Rothstein]

9. Their Omicron wave started after ours.

It just so happened to coincide with when they lifted restrictions. As we've seen in every place around the world, even those with restrictions, Omicron cases blew up.

[SheltieLover]

10. BA 2 said to be 1.5 as transmissable

And spring break is nearly upon us.

https://www.ama-assn.org/delivering-care/public-health/what-ba2-or-stealth-omicron-subvariant

[Ace Rothstein]

12. I know, we're going to London for spring break.

[SheltieLover]

14. Have fun

[Haggard Celine]

11. What did they think was going to happen?

I can understand if a state/country decides to lift restrictions because they think the rise in cases aren't that high, or even if they accept that more deaths aren't enough reason to restrict people's freedoms, but how could they lift restrictions and think that sickness/death rates would remain the same? I thought Denmark was a progressive country. Usually progressive people are educated and intelligent, but apparently that's not always the case.

[Skittles]

13. file under the WHAT THE FUCK DID THEY THINK WOULD HAPPEN

[SheltieLover]

15. Absolutely!

[crickets]

22. 👆👆

Wait for it. The US "we've just got to get on with our lives" crowd will start testing positive in droves.

[Skittles]

35. selfish assholes

can you imagine how this crowd would act if they had to make REAL sacrifices like people did during WWII?

[OhioChick]

45. Exactly... Apparently, we've learning nothing n/t

[bluestarone]

17. Getting so tiresome of the IDIOTS

I guess let them learn the hard way. WE WILL wear our masks no matter what others do!

[Tomconroy]

18. Some countries in europe put in some strict restrictions

and mandates during Omicron. I don't know if they did any better than someplace like England that didn't. I'm pretty sure Scotland closed stuff. Also the Netherlands. I guess you'd check hospitalizations per 100000 or cases.
It would be interesting to compare.
I know vaccinatios work. I don't know what else does in the real world.

[Laurelin]

44. Actually, the Netherlands locked down before Christmas

Because we were dealing with delta then. We're behind the US and England with omicron, omicron 1 has now displaced delta completely and omicron 2 is growing. Our cases started to exponentially increase while we still had a lot of restrictions; the graph is nearly vertical and case numbers shattered records daily (the latest numbers decreased but it's averaged over i think 7 days so that may not hold up).

We're about to drop all restrictions, I hear.

I think the conclusion is that restrictions don't slow omicron much; it's just too contagious. Now that the government feels enough people are boosted they're just letting it spread and hoping it will give more immunity. Our hospitalizations and deaths are still quite low, hopefully because we're so vaccinated, but of course both will increase.

The point was always to keep hospitals from collapsing under the strain and Danmark, Germany and the Netherlands are managing that so far.

[Jose Garcia]

19. Are vaccinated people dying?

[TomWilm]

25. Nope. Story got the numbers all wrong...

Many are now infected, but close to all do survive, since we are so highly waxxed. Since many are now infected, many who dies of other causes do now have the infection, but for most that fact has nothing to do with the causes for their death...

Misinformation: Extremely many people die because of COVID-19 in Denmark.
Answer: This is not correct.

During the last months of 2021, Denmark saw a higher number of deaths than expected in persons older than 75 years of age, which is anticipated to be caused by the Delta variant.

However, as from week 1, 2022, mortality has decreased in Denmark and now approaches the normal and expected level. This occurs in spite of an increased number of persons with a positive PCR-test in Denmark and is considered to reflect the fact that the dominant Omicron variant causes less mortality.

Misinformation: The mortality rate is rising in Denmark.
Answer: This is not correct.

It is correct that people still die from Covid-19, but because the Omicron variant causes less mortality than previous variants, an increasing number of those SARS-CoV-2 infected persons who die, die with COVID-19 and not because of COVID-19.

https://en.ssi.dk/covid-19/typical-misinformation-regarding-danish-covid-numbers

[muriel_volestrangler]

46. Hmm - a bit of arse-covering there, I think

The Danish testing rate is about 60% higher than the UK rate; but the Danish death rate is now over twice the UK one, and climbing.

https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&time=2021-07-01..latest&facet=none&pickerSort=desc&pickerMetric=new_cases_per_million&Metric=Confirmed+deaths&Interval=7-day+rolling+average&Relative+to+Population=true&Color+by+test+positivity=false&country=USA~GBR~DEU~DNK

It's not a good look when the deaths are worse in Denmark than the country run by Boris Johnson. Yes, some of the increase is "dying with covid, not because of covid", but not all.

[TomWilm]

48. FALSE. There is NO climbing death rate OF COVID in Denmark

Read above post more carefully. The Danish death rate is close to normal.

In the Danish statistics there is now, after the Grand Opening, NOT a higher than normal rate of dying - for any deaths, including Covid-19. The same is true even for last year!

Do not worry - we are (almost) all vaxxed and very muck OK!

(I am in no way fan of our government, which we right now hope to tumble - but for other reasons than this)

[muriel_volestrangler]

49. I'd like to see some statistics, but I suspect they're not ready yet

because in most countries, the total death rate is a couple of weeks (or more) behind the deaths involving covid, since there's more focus on the latter. The point is, the death rate "with or because of" covid is skyrocketing - more so than it did in the UK, and more than extra testing can explain alone.

But if you have actual statistics rather than the official "nothing to see here" statement without numbers, that'd be good.

[TomWilm]

51. As of today there is 11 persons on ventilators in all of Denmark

You can find some useful links at
https://en.ssi.dk/news/news/2022/mortality-is-declining-in-denmark

And again, it is the number of infected with Covid that is skyrocketing, not the actual number of people dying here - of any cause. Denmark has no reason to dig mass graves out of those statistics...

I lost grandparents to the virus, before the vaccines were ready, and would be the first to scream CONSPIRACY if I knew of thousands of hidden deaths here - and we do have very effective journalists, who are good at asking questions. But, as you say, there is actually nothing to see.

It might come, we do not know yet - but for the time being everything looks OK!

[muriel_volestrangler]

52. The graph at that link has data up to week 4, 2022

which is Jan 24th to Jan 30th. And it's dated 2nd Feb, so that makes sense. But, from the link I gave above, Denmark's "with or because of covid" 7 day average death rate has, since Jan 30th, gone up from 3.19 per million to 5.28 (the highest since Jan 24th, 2021).

In week 1, 2022, the total Danish death rate was about 20% above the average for the time of year (using their 'corrected for delay in registration' estimate, in orange - possibly more, thought figures around Christmas and the new year can be a bit variable due to combinations of weekends and public holidays). They estimate the excess dropped to around 7% by week 4. But that page, from 3rd Feb, is written with hope, but without the figures, covid or total, for the past 2 weeks.

[OnlinePoker]

31. They are in BC

Most of the 247 COVID-19 deaths between Jan. 8 and Feb. 4 were among people who had received at least two doses of vaccine. There were 53 deaths (or 21 per cent of the total) among those with two shots and 119 (48 per cent) among those who had three shots. A total of 68 unvaccinated people (28 per cent) died during the period.

https://bc.ctvnews.ca/b-c-covid-19-update-5-more-deaths-as-hospitalizations-continue-to-decline-1.5776725

The majority of deaths occurred in those 70 and over. In BC, about 85% of those over age 5 have had at least 2 shots and 51% over age 12 have had 2 shots and the booster.

[Tomconroy]

47. It's pretty clear over 65s needed three shots to be safe from

Omicron. Two weren't enough.

[beaglelover]

20. Here's what some other experts in Denmark are saying about the rise in COVID cases there.

"But is that the right way to read the numbers? In response to Topol’s tweet — and others like it — Danish experts took to Twitter to object.

“Those data do not capture the epidemic situation in Denmark adequately,” tweeted political scientist Michael Bang Petersen, who advises the Danish government and leads the country’s largest study of pandemic behavior.

“Hospital burden in regards to COVID-19 is still low compared to former waves, and mortality is low,” Søren Neermark, an official at the Danish Health Authority, went on to explain.

“Test-positive admitted in Denmark” — that is, the number of people who are hospitalized with COVID but not necessarily because of it — “reflects high incidence in society, but is not the best current indicator for the burden of COVID-19.”

At first, this might sound like an academic debate about Scandinavian statistics. But it’s actually something much deeper and more significant. Like Denmark before it, the United States is also hurtling toward its own post-Omicron tipping point — the moment that U.S. society, broadly speaking, decides that COVID risks have become more tolerable than COVID rules."

https://www.yahoo.com/news/in-warning-to-us-covid-rates-soar-after-denmark-lifts-all-restrictions-183342093.html

[Bernardo de La Paz]

30. Hospitalization always lags infection, despite the obfuscation by the officials. . . .nt

[Rebl2]

21. Well of course!

All the schools in my area are getting rid of mask mandates. Told my husband there will be a lot of sick kids again. It’s not like Covid is gone in our area.

[Talitha]

23. I'm pushing 70 and will continue wearing N95 masks until

Until Dr Fauci or the CDC announces that Covid-19 has become endemic.

[Orrex]

24. If only this outcome had been obvious to anyone who gave the matter a second's thought

But of course the only goal since day one has been to open the economy, and nearly every statement from nearly every government agency along the way has ultimately had the intent of advancing toward that goal.

[paleotn]

26. Don't get impatient. I'm impatient too, but....

let this pathogen evolve to the mean like it's distant cousins.

[BigmanPigman]

27. I follow worlometers and tje number of new deaths

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/denmark/

Is as high as it was duting the big wave a year ago.

[Igel]

32. And the data are the problem.

The increase started before 1/1/22 and has increased. Death rates lag by a few weeks. Saying that what happened on 2/1/22 is responsible for the increase in deaths 2 weeks later fallows, not follows, the science. (Even if we assume that immediately everybody went out to celebrate the Great Unmasking, you wouldn't expect the death count's trajectory.)

Put this in the "post hoc" category. . The increase began independently of the lifting of restrictions, the increase in deaths has followed predictably as a consequence.

It might be possible to argue that the omicron wave had peaked esp. quickly in Denmark and was declining when the restricted lifted, causing an abrupt rise in covid cases, but that rise is a bit abrupt and I'd want to look at the numbers and what's behind the numbers a bit more carefully before making much of a claim either way.

[BumRushDaShow]

28. What is that oft-used saying?

I do like this version though -

[Bernardo de La Paz]

29. Despite Denmark's top notch vaccination rate. . . . nt

[IronLionZion]

38. That's the price of free dumb

[Larissa]

42. The vaccine is the best defense

I couldn't understand recent statements of public officials suggesting that the worst is over and its time to scale down the face masks in some circumstances. This is magical thinking brought on, I believe, by political pressure. The virus is still circulating.

I live in a state -- New Jersey -- with an international airport. (With another one next door in New York City.) Everyday hundreds of flights take off and land to near and faraway places, some places where most folks don't know what a Covid vaccine looks like.

CNBC.com - August 8, 2021: Famed Epidemiologist, Larry Brilliant: "The world is nowhere near the end of the Covid pandemic. The pandemic is not coming to an end soon -- given that only a small proportion of the world population has been vaccinated against Covid-19. Only 15 percent of the world population has been vaccinated and more than 100 countries have inoculated less than 5 percent of their people. Unless we vaccinate everyone in 200 countries, there will still be new variants.

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/09/covid-epidemiologist-larry-brilliant-on-delta-variant-vaccinations.html

[PSPS]

43. Who cares? Everyone (including many on DU) are "done with it" and are happy to prolong this.

[Skittles]

50. yup

selfish assholes are not exclusively repukes

[lagomorph777]

54. Gosh, who could have predicted that?

Thanks, Virginia, for electing Gov. Trumpkin, who has just lifted all restrictions here. We're going to jump from pretty good to horrific.

[lagomorph777]

58. There is that.

Deaths are approaching Civil War levels. Bodies piled up like at Bull Run or Sharpsburg. Mostly the Rebels, fortunately.

[LaMouffette]

55. Yeah, another surge is likely inevitable, thanks to the anti-vaxxer-anti-maskers. THIS time around,

though, the CDC should just say, "We are lifting all vaccine and mask requirements and will not reinstate them. However, if you are able to receive the vaccine but do not get vaccinated and then get Covid, do not go to the hospital. You will not receive treatment. You will not be allowed to take up the bed space of other patients who did get vaccinated. You will be turned away."

Let them learn the hard way that Covid is real and that the vaccines do prevent hospitalization in most cases.