Denmark is the first EU country since the start of the Omicron wave to have lifted almost all Corona measures: Despite high infection rates, among other things, the health passport requirement, the mask requirement and shortened opening hours for bars have been dropped since Tuesday. Only some entry restrictions for unvaccinated people from countries outside the Schengen area are to apply for four weeks longer.

The government justified the end of the restrictions with the high vaccination rate in Denmark and a milder course of disease when infected with the Omicron variant.

However, the Omicron wave has still not been broken in Denmark. Currently, the incidence is around 5300, making Denmark the second highest in Europe. Only on the archipelago Faroe Islands, which belongs to the Danish crown, there were more new infections per 100,000 inhabitants in the last seven days.

Danish Health Minister Magnus Heunicke had justified the plan last week by citing the high Corona vaccination rate in Denmark. 3.5 million people, representing more than 60 percent of the population in Denmark, have already received a booster vaccination, and 81 percent of Danes have been vaccinated twice. This means the country is exceeding the health authorities' plans. By comparison, in Germany, 75 percent are doubly vaccinated and 50 percent of the population is triply vaccinated.

"We have good control over hospitalization rates," the minister added. In Germany's neighboring country, the highly contagious Omicron variant of the coronavirus had spread early, pushing the number of new daily infections to new highs. Heunicke wrote on Twitter that infection numbers remain high, "but our current assessment is that the epidemic will peak in the near future."

Roskilde University virologist Lone Simonsen had already spread confidence earlier this year. By spring, the pandemic would be over, she surmised. Moreover, by the end of the month, every second Dane would have had Corona. A kind of herd immunity is therefore to be expected.

Photo by Nick Karvounis