– It gives a feeling of compulsion – VG
COPENHAGEN (VG) Life becomes more unfree again for Denmark’s unvaccinated. Tomorrow the corona passport will be reintroduced and today the vaccine queues were long after the Prime Minister’s thunder speech this week.
Ouch
Ólafur Steinar Rye Gestsson (photo)
– We think Prime Minister Mette Fredriksen puts too much pressure on us. It gives a feeling of coercion, say the brothers Jon (25) and Lau Christensen (17). They are still unvaccinated, and they intended to remain so.
The two are almost in front of a long, long queue of people who have come to the drop-in vaccine center at Vingelodden in outer Nørrebro in Copenhagen.
The gray barracks with the train line on one side and the huge parking lot on the other, are crowded with people. Some will test themselves, some will have a booster dose – others have come for the first bite.
Sky-high infection
Early in the morning, at 06.00, the deadline is:
Then Denmark introduces a new requirement for coronapas in cafes, restaurants, nightclubs, museums and a number of other places where many people gather, after a majority in the Parliament’s Epidemic Committee this unknown declared covid-19 and socially critical disease.
In Norway, following well is highly probable.
Denmark was the first country in the EU to wave goodbye to all corona restrictions and reopened societies. It happened on September 10th.
Until months later, the infection is sky high and hospital admissions are at an alarmingly high level. This made Prime Minister Mette Fredriksen take a hard line against a special group on Monday night:
– Then there is a small group that does not follow the rules of the game when there is a pandemic. That is why I say it very strongly and very clearly; there is no reason not to get vaccinated. You bear a great responsibility not only for yourself, but also the human beings you come in contact with.
Then she added:
– You bear a responsibility for the whole of Danish society now.
Half a million say no
Brothers Jon and Lau do not come to the vaccine center because of the Prime Minister’s internal call.
– We vaccinate ourselves for our mother who has become seriously ill. She got cancer in late August, they say.
Had it not been for Mom, they would not have been vaccinated. Now they are reluctant to pass the infection on to her. Jon is studying economics at the University of Copenhagen and Lau is in high school.
Somewhere between 5–600 000 Danes who have been offered a vaccine have refused, according to figures from The National Board of Health.
These are the ones the Danish government and the health authorities believe must step in.
– We have one of the highest vaccine adherences in the world, but we want higher up and are not satisfied. But I do not think we will get further up by introducing coercion, said Minister of Health Magnus Heunicke, Monday night.
The Social Democratic Prime Minister Mette Fredriksen said that the government is on the side with the almost 90 percent who do what is necessary in the pandemic.
– Therefore, we are very concerned that the last group should not be allowed to ruin for the large group, she said.
On Wednesday this week, Denmark saw gloomy corona numbers again. The highest since December last year.
3017 infected in one day, 319 hospitalized, 39 in the intensive care unit and 23 in the respirator, according to the Statens Serum Institut.
If the measures that are now being reintroduced do not work, it is feared that many will double in a few weeks.
The first measure that needs to be put in place again is coronapass.
– Coronapass is annoying and it is stressful to keep it in mind, says Sonja Carle (23)
She has come to a basement in a brick block in the district Utterslev northwest of Copenhagen. There she stands, waiting with her bag over her shoulder to get the drop-in vaccine.
Had it not been for the corona passport that will be reintroduced tomorrow, she would have dropped the dose number. She does not think she found time in the life of it.
In Denmark, the spread of infection is greatest among young unvaccinated and children.
– I want to go to concerts and parties. I think we must be allowed to live instead of isolating ourselves, she says.
Sonja was infected with corona just before Christmas last year, and like all those who have undergone the disease in Denmark, has a corona passport for one year. Well these are just issued for half a year at a time.
– We were four friends who became infected and who had to isolate us together on Christmas Eve. Our parents brought us Christmas trees and food while we were locked up, she says.
She sits down and folds up her T-shirt and gets ready for pfizerdose number two.
– Now I want to travel the world. To the United States, China and Vietnam, says Sonja.
After the Prime Minister gave his more than clear speech on Monday, as many as 10,000 unvaccinated Danes ordered corona vaccine the same day. The number the day before was 2,000.
Up from the toolbox
The fact that Danes are now taking the corona passport out of the toolbox again is a measure to keep the wheels of society moving, at a time when infection is rising rapidly.
– We must use the corona passport as a security when we gather many people, said Minister of Trade and Industry Simon Kollerup this week.
The passport must be displayed at indoor restaurants and in the nightlife. If you are unvaccinated, you must present a negative coronal test that is not older than 48 hours at the fastest, or 72 hours at PCR test – to be able to have a beer.
– When we now go to a restaurant, we know that the sideman has either been vaccinated or tested negative. Of course, it can never be one hundred percent of the safety, but we must make sure to keep the infection in check, says Kollerup.
Denmark is also now checking the people coronapass at events with over 200 people indoors and 2000 people outdoors, according to the Ministry of Trade and Industry.
– Decorate the truth
Torunn Langaas (49) from Kongsberg has lived in Copenhagen for 20 years.
We meet her at a café in Østerbro, the Copenhagen district with wide avenues and stately apartments.
She has chosen to say no to the corona vaccine, but is not a vaccine denier.
– I took a thorough round with myself because I was really in doubt. I came to the conclusion that I did not want to. This is a vaccine we do not know very well the effect of, and maybe we have to take it once a year for the rest of our lives. These are strong things we run in the body. Do we want that?
Torunn has a master’s degree from Norway, with economics, literary history, art history and history and works in a German group implementing tax systems.
– I think that governments embellish the truth about vaccines a bit and that the development and use of it is about global alliances, power and political interests, she believes.
Mette Fredriksen’s serious mine this week does not reach Torun.
– I do not think she documents well enough that it is the unvaccinated who are the problem, she says.
Torunn was infected with corona in May, and became seriously ill. She went into co-isolation with her seven-year-old son, and was followed up by the Danish health service daily.
– It was a tough round. If I had been old and frail with underlying disease, I would probably consider the vaccine.
– But if you do not have to test yourself several times a week, then you do not enter cafes and restaurants?
– It is not a must for me to meet in a café. I would rather take a trip out into nature. The interest in nature has been brought to life in many under the corona, also the ability to see better inwardly in ourselves, because we have not to the same degree had the opportunity to run away from ourselves all the time, Torunn believes.
She does not think the corona will ever disappear. She’s not going to say vaccinate for that reason.
In the course of almost a year with corona in Denmark, it has been completed in almost 45 million korats. 2745 people have died.