As of tomorrow, February 1st, Denmark will be the first country in Europe — arguably the world — to put an end to all Covid-related laws. Even if you have the disease, it will only be recommended that you isolate, and even then only for three days. If you have no symptoms, you can go to meet your friends.
Most remarkably, Denmark is taking this step at a time when Covid-19 cases have never been higher — and are still growing.
Dr Camilla Holten-Møller is the head of the Expert Group for Mathematical Modelling at the Danish Health Institute (Staten’s Serum Institut). It was on the strength of her group’s models of the Omicron wave that the Epidemiological Commission recommended scrapping all the rules. Perhaps most remarkable of all is that the move is being supported by all the political parties in Denmark.
They also decided in the government that Covid should no longer be considered critical to public health. That means that the legislation is changing, so many of these interventions can no longer be supported by legal mandate. Many things will be ruled out: the Corona pass will go away, restrictions on nightlife and cultural institutions also ending.
- Dr Camilla Holten-Møller, Staten Serum Institut
The decision all comes down to the Omicron variant, which Dr Holten-Møller estimates to be only 20% of the severity of the Delta variant of Covid:
We see these really high case numbers each day, but we don’t see it in the severity or in hospitals. Patients are going to hospital — of course, a lot of people with Covid — but their not necessarily ill from Covid.
- Dr Camilla Holten-Møller, Staten Serum Institut
Overall, Dr Holten-Møller considers Denmark to be in a very strong position:
With Omicron, we simply don’t need any more to flatten the curve as much as we used to… I definitely believe that SARS-Cov-2 will continue circulating during the summer period as well, and in winter, we will start to see case counts going up again simply because we have the waning immunity of the vaccine… But for now, I think with the Omicron, we’re in a good place — we expect the springtime and summertime will be pretty quiet.
- Dr Camilla Holten-Møller, Staten Serum Institut
On Natural Immunity:
It definitely is something you need to consider: the state of the population immunity, how well is it built up? And what does it mean for the next waves? In Denmark, we saw that the immunity is primarily by vaccination — we actually had very low prevalence in Denmark, we didn’t have very large waves. And probably that is also why the Omicron has an advantage right now, because it’s an immune-evasive variant. In other countries where you used to have high waves or high peaks of other variants, you might do better or see less Omicron simply because it doesn’t have an advantage as it does it highly vaccinated countries like Denmark.
- Dr Camilla Holten-Møller, Staten Serum Institut
For an in-depth discussion of the Danish Covid models, and how they appear to have been more accurate than the English attempts to answer the same question, watch this space…
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SubscribeIs Neil Young boycotting Denmark yet?
Probably not. I have been informed by reliable sources that Neil Young is a big consumer of pornography, pork, and beer.
The UK has the PPE. Denmark has the PPB.
WALOB..
“‘Sweet Home Alabama’. The anthem **, when Van Zant proudly sang: “I hope Neil Young will remember, a southern man don’t need him around anyhow.””
‘Sweet Home Alabama’ Love the crude American Rock – arriving in USA as a young man, living rough in the South the genera is the backdrop of my time then – Molly Hatchet, .38 Special, CCR, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Allman Brothers, Van Halan, ZZ Top,Ted Nugent, and a Great Deal of Country, even Bluegrass… Big change from the British stuff….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ye5BuYf8q4o
second 58
Skynyrd really disliked Young – and same from him, Young has always been a total Lefty Idiot trying to censor anything not hard Liberal/Left.
Just for fun, what is your opinion of ‘Mr Saturday Night Special’? One of their best numbers (out of the admittedly limited number I have heard).
I’m sure he is reading the NYT and watching CNN so when Denmark appears he will boycott them for sure.
Wow…a nation actually basing public health decisions on an informed reading of science, rather than The Science ™ a la Fauci!
Do bear in mind that this is the same country, and the same politicians, that put in hard lockdowns early – in contrast to Unherd’s beloved Sweden. Also the country that killed all mink in Denmark – and the country’s flourishing fur industry (illegally, as it happens) to avoid the risk of contagion. They were not praised much on Unherd back then. How do you know that their current reading of science is informed, and Fauci’s is not? Let me guess: because you only believe in science when it confirms your preconceived ideas?
No, I believe in using science as it’s supposed to be used, as a method of investigation, always questioning assumptions and hypotheses, and certainly NOT as Fauci et al. have demonstrated in suppressing alternative theories. That the US Surgeon General recently came out in favor of censorship of what he regards as “disinformation” speaks volumes as to the Biden regime’s view of “science.”
I don’t believe Fauci because: 1. he is always wrong and has a history of being wildly wrong–see his early comments on HIV/AIDS, 2. he is an admitted liar, 3. because he loves being on TV and will say anything to keep the cameras focused on him, 4. his science is politics.
Speaking of mink, I hope the “zombie mink” come back to bite you, Rasmus!
Fauci is Pharma. He said he is ‘Science’ when in fact he is ‘Big Pharma’. The 1980s AIDs and AZT story is just the covid vax story, Deja vu all over again.
And nothing in my first reply either endorsed or condemned the initial Danish or Swedish responses. I’m pleased to see that a nation can adapt to vastly different circumstances in a reasoned manner vs. the “more of the same” attitude among many American politicians and public health “experts.”
I disagree with Rasmus on everything Covid-related, but he does have a point here. DK has not exactly covered itself in glory. They did much harm to their economy and to their people, though less than elsewhere in Europe.
The point, though, is that they are a country capable of learning from our mistakes, admitting where and how they went wrong and reversing course.
There is something to learn from that, too.
I thought Denmark and Fauci walked, policy wise, hand in hand through much of this fiasco – but the Danes being brighter than most saw the agenda breaking up sooner, so are doing their about-face faster and sooner. She does say they Must go back and find out what they did wrong.
I hope they go right to phase III and begin to find the culprits who caused all the harm – do a DEEP dive into Pharma corruption, insider stock trading and social manipulation, debt and money movement.
The 2020 Mink Slaughter will always be a symbol of the Danish response.
Well personally I found her evasive…. dodging around many pointed questions. Tediously political. Team Sweden.
Funny that. I found her completely professional and scientific. And I found that Freddie Sayers was fishing to get confirmation of the ideas he had already – or at least to test them – and not concentrating on pulling out the information she had. And she was sticking to telling what she knew and had done, and simply refusing to be roped into Freddie Sayers fights. And why should she answer questions about British modelling groups, or judgements on the policies of various governments, let alone defend them, when she was not involved in either?
What? A well-informed journalist asking pointed and difficult questions based on prior research and intimate familiarity with the context?!?
Note to CNN: NEVER hire this bozo.
If he had been grilling her on Danish policy early in the pandemic and the information it was based on that would have made sense – and been quite interesting too. She would have had something to say on that. There is a difference between grilling a responsible politician and an unattached scientist, though. The politician is responsible for certain decisions and can be assumed to know the reasons and be responsible for the consequences. The third-party scientist is not. Freddie Sayers obviously wanted her to confirm that other modellers were biased towards overestimating the risks, that the UK modelling work was badly done, that it would have been better to avoid lockdowns, and a few other things. These were questions that either she did not know the answer to or that were not for her to voice opinions on. It is as if he had been grilling her on Chinese security policy in Hong Kong; no matter how pointed and well-informed he was it would not result in good journalism.
I mean, I simply disagree. A good journalist is like a dog with a bone. He asks hard questions, tries to get information out of reluctant sources and in this way sheds light on new information.
When you do this, you sometimes hit brick walls.
Sometimes, though, it results in this gem from April 2020:
Imperial’s Neil Ferguson defends lockdown strategy – The Post (unherd.com)
An interview in which the UK’s modeller says lots of things on record that we now know to be wrong wrong wrong:
You do not shed light on new information by trying to get information out of people who do not have it in the first place. I’d put that under ‘bullying people to make them confirm your personal views’.
You never know who has information until you ask some hard questions. That is a basic concept in journalism.
I hadn’t heard anything about this. So, I thought I’d look it up on BBC news.
Nothing. Absolutely nothing
Just searched the BBC website. Apparently Christian Eriksen moving to Brentford is the only Danish news worth reporting. No editorial choice going on there at all. Not much in the Guardian either….what a surprise.
Isn’t there a risk of lowered fitness and performance after Eriksen’s heart condition?
Your license fee doing important journalism. There was, however, 12 minutes of news on the BBC today devoted to left-hand albino lesbians in Rwanda today, and the terrible, terrible discrimination they face….
PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE don’t pay the license fee….
Just for a laugh, I have done some mathematical modeling to determine what % of living people named “Neil” are Churlish Unhinged Negative Twins.
My sample group was small but sufficient, consisting of Neil Young and Neil Ferguson. Guess what? 100%!
My mathematical modeling is absolutely as good as that coming from the UK, and almost as good as that from Denmark.
Apologies to Neil Armstrong, who was not included in the study because he is deceased; the conclusions in no way apply to this American hero.
good old Armstrong had the faked moon landings filmed in the Mojave, you can see a sandwich wrapper in one of the scenes….
I do rather feel that the C word is too gender specific and should be reserved for the nasty female of the species – its time for a better word for the male …………….duplicitious dork anyone ?? (off the subject i know but we at Unherd do attempt standards ……….
I’m doing my best. On your side of the pond, the c word is used quite a bit differently, and I’m simply trying to fit in with the UnHerd crowd….
Nah we are the same – anything objectionable can merit the C word – but i rather like that peice of anatomy and dont like womanhood in general being put down by association – just a bit funny like that. Tho in the moment it is still the best there is….
I was surprised at Freddie referencing Ferguson who has been famously pessimistic, not just about Covid but in other areas too. Like Covid, he’s always been wrong.
Thank you Denmark! Can you please add this sophisticated modelling to your other quality exports. Much in demand.
Someone should send this to Neil Doomerson.
Or do you mean Null Doomerson- Null in training, degree OR successes for 21 years?
So, the Danes have models, just like everyone has models. As new data come in, they re-calibrate their models. But, so what?
Connecting dots ex post is all very nice, but is part of the conceit here that public policy can achieve “Zero COVID”? Or can reduce total infections? Or reduce total mortality?
Around the developed world we see that “excess mortality” not attributed to COVID has remained stubbornly high for everyone over the age of 18 or so. (I myself have examined data from the U.S., state by state.) Are such distressing outcomes the result of public policy?
One might get the sense that the modelers are like central bankers: When economic activity goes down, central bankers reduce interest rates. And when the economy recovers, the bankers credit their monetary polices. And when the economy remains sluggish, they double-down on their monetary policies. But, it’s not obvious that their policies have helped, and one might worry that their policies have actually induced a lot of harm. It’s not obvious that the modelers and the central bankers are involved in nothing more than ex post rationalizing and taking credit where there is no credit to take.
Feel free to peruse my own state-by-state analysis of COVID performance — it is very accessible — over at Substack. Look up “dvwilliamson.”
As always, a very well done interview, Freddie.
Zero COVID was a hope at the start (we are pretty close to ‘zero Ebola’ after all). It can be achieved for quite a while, look at China and New Zealand, but with the new variants people accept that it is a lost cause. Total mortality has already been reduced, by postponing cases till people got vaccinated first and avoiding overloading the hospitals. Total cases I am not sure, maybe not. I hope that someone reliable will one day explain what kind of anti-COVID measures might make sense in the long run, and to what extent they can reduce total cases.
The comparison to central bankers is pretty interesting. In both cases the problem is extremely important, and knowledge and understanding is imperfect. The sensible course would seem to be doing the best you can. Only people with an axe to grind would say that because we do not completely understand the system we should do absolutely nothing and take it for granted that what happens by chance is necessarily better than what happens if we try to act.
This is interesting. Unlike the Johnson government and most Unherd commentators, the Danish government has demonstrated that they are willing to listen to the evidence and take strong anti-COVID measures if they think the evidence warrants it. So, when they now say that there is no need for further measures, it actually means something. They have credibility – unlike those who have been against all anti-COVID measures regardless of the state of evidence. Great that Unherd promises to show us their argumentation in detail. I had hoped to see that somewhere.
There is some scratching on the argumentation in the video which covers a tad more than the summary. Personally although a cheerleader of release for some months now and therefore biased I am much encouraged by Freddie’s interview. It is great news.
“They have credibility – unlike those who have been against all anti-COVID measures regardless of the state of evidence.”
Rasmus, the global situation now is like after Titanic struck the iceberg, and the crew saying, ‘what was that’? It will be a few years till the damage really hits. The Trillions mis-spent, the increasing of M2, Fiscal and Monetary insane Debt, market manipulation loss of education, destruction of third world markets and wrecking their money leaving them with $ debt they can never repay, the trade lines broken, the inflation, the housing market, the pensions breaking, the Zero Interest – the disaster is looming – it just is not understood yet.
The wealthy are already in the lifeboats, and the economy passengers locked in the lower levels…..
Agreed – again the Scandinavians appear to be the grown-ups on the planet – esp when political parties can actually work TOGETHER like er grown-ups – how refreshing and hopeful.
It helps to be a small, homogenous nation. So does the local implementation of PR. 8+ parties in parliament, variable multi-party coalition governments, and a tradition of making multi-party deals for large law complexes in some area (‘law packages’). Having influence – and visibility – requires participating in the deals, and if you are not capable of being a reliable negotiating partner you do not get asked to play. There is almost always an alternative partner. That goes a long way towards keeping politicians serious and honest. The TV series ‘Borgen’ gives a decent impression of the mechanics, if you are interested.
Well Denmark really doesn’t have too much credibility because everything they did prior failed as it has failed everywhere. But at least they realize now, after 2 years, that all the measures were worthless.
On a different note, just for you Rasmus you might like to read the following emerging from a whistleblower from the US DOD relating to vaccine safety: https://www.theblaze.com/op-ed/horowitz-whistleblowers-share-dod-medical-data-that-blows-vaccine-safety-debate-wide-open. Unlike the VAERS database, the military document everything with codes so there’s no question as to what’s going on.
Likewise with respect to Ivermectin Rasmus, you should read the report from the recent massive trial in brazil: https://www.cureus.com/articles/82162-ivermectin-prophylaxis-used-for-covid-19-a-citywide-prospective-observational-study-of-223128-subjects-using-propensity-score-matching. Also of interest is the detailed report regarding Ivermectin and whether it should be allowed to be used by physicians in this very detailed and really thorough report from the Attorney General of Nebraska: https://ago.nebraska.gov/sites/ago.nebraska.gov/files/docs/opinions/21-017_0.pdf
Lightning quick look:
1) A lawyer suing vaccine manufacturers presents a shocking data set that proves immense malfeasance by the people he is suing. Yawn. It looks like an interesting data set, though, and if it is ever analysed by a competent person without preconceived opinions, or alternatively by both ‘for’ and ‘against’ teams, it might yield some good information.
2) The current state of Ivermectin AFAIAC is that there are a number of positive reports, a number of negative reports, and the status remains ‘promising, but unproved’. Since I have neither the time nor the talent to make my own meta-analysis, I shall await something like a scientific consensus, and anyway just one more paper would not be enough for me to tip the scales.
3) Which is more likely: That the Attorney General for the State of Nebraska has a remarkable talent and knowledge in medical statistics and is presenting an unbiased and convincing report? Or that he has been asked to provide justification for a politically taken decision, and as a good lawyer has done so?
Sorry to be so consistently negative, but this entire debate is so inflamed that a lot of the arguments given (by either side) are suspect. There are a lot of people (again, on either side) who could be suspected of distorting the data to match their (even honestly held) opinions. You need to be really careful when deciding what you can trust.
Perhaps look at (1) a bit more carefully. It doesn’t matter who is presenting the data. The data were leaked by a whistleblower and the data basically corroborate what is seen in VAERS and the UK Yellow book. The fact that you want to close your eyes reveals an incapability of thinking about this logically.
As for Ivermectin, you have to look at the size of the Brazillian study. It’s the most recent one and the results are impressive. With a quarter of a million people involved, this is a significant result.
Your problem is that overall you are a negative person and a shill for the narrative put forth by various western Governments. Yet everything that those Governments have done has failed to quell the virus. And anybody with a brain knew that because what they did went directly against all their pandemic preparedness schemes.
I did read a bit beyond just the author. These people are claiming that COVID vaccination causes:
a threefold increase in miscarriages, cancer, myocardial infarction and Bell’s palsy;
a tenfold increase in neurological disorders;
a 4.5 fold increase in female infertility and pulmonary embolism;
a 150% increase in congenital malformations.
Now this is a treatment that has been given to 60-80% of the entire population in many European countries – and nobody has even noticed these catastrophically high side effects! A treatment that must be killing hundreds of thousands of people and it all got swept under the carpet! They went public with the rare blood clots from the AstraZenaca vaccine and the myocarditis, but they are keeping a lid on a 300% increase in cancer?? Nobody but a couple of brave medical doctors in the US army dare even talk about it??!? I mean – do you actually believe this shit?
It’s you who are full of shit unfortunately. Those numbers from the US army are entirely reliable I’m afraid. You can’t screw around in the US army.
When someone has translated the raw reports to actual, individual cases and checked the diagnoses, explained how COVID vaccinations night cause cancer, infarctions etc., and compared with data for the UK, Denmark etc. where the whole population is vaccinated and it should be very easy to observe such huge effects, well, then it will be easy to see what the truth is. Until then it is just another unanalysed data point, at odds with most of the others.
About those failed policies: From https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries I note the list of corona deaths per million inhabitants
Rank Country Deaths per million
18 US 2724
25 Italy 2429
30 UK 2275
57 Sweden 1562
108 Denmark 647
All those statistics are rather imprecise, of course. Still, if this is failure I can live with it.
Seems that Sweden who did absolutely nothing ranked higher than the UK or Italy or the US. Doesn’t that tell you something. Perhaps not, since as far as I can tell you think that 2+2 = 5.
Did you hear the interview? Dr. Moller pointed out that the Swedes did a lot of the precautions anyway just from official advice, that other countries like Denmark introduced as mandates. Swedes are very much into doing what they are supposed to do. The actual difference is quite a bit smaller than you think. If you tried the same thing in Montana you might get a rather different result. Anyway, you claimed Danish policy was a failure. I do not see the evidence.
Dr. Camilla has to come to the U.S. before the U.K. Ral science and common sense prevails!
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Some clear facts came out of this. The Omicron variant really seems to be less virulent that Delta, by a factor of maybe 3-5. The idea is not new, but this is the first authoritative and credible statement of it I have heard. Also the Danish modelling group had factored in spontaneous adjustment in behaviour, which it seems the British groups had explicitly not done. It is probably easier to do that with a smaller and better data-covered population, consistent and credible official guidance, and a high level of trust in the authorities. You also note that there was no talk of minimising case numbers – the Danes do not seem to see that as a priority, which is likely significant. There was also no mention of long COVID, which is probably not siginficant, just a topic that I wish had come up (and that a less biased interviewer would have raised).
One thing struck me. If the Danish group has concentrated in a purely professional manner on providing the best data and uncertainty information to their decision makers, this may have been made easier by two things. First they did not have competing groups with strong political opinions providing counter-models. So, no need to counteract those. Second, they probably felt they could trust the politicians to make rational use of the data they got, and to take responsibility for their own decisions. Which leads to a clear and healthy division of labour. If you happen to have a leader likely to grab any excuse to remove restrictions and ‘save Christmas’, and who can be counted on to blame you if his gambles do not pay off, well, you might feel a need to be more cautious.
Long Covid may well be a bigger deal than we all realize – and by extension another reason that minimizing covid spread was best practice – however we wont know for a while yet – which is why it is so difficult to clarify best practice – vs an attempt at simplistic solutions.
Is there a publication with the details of this model?
Maybe Danes..
1. Are smarter than brits?
2. Have more courage?
3. Know how to behave?
4. Have a trustworthy govt.?
5. Don’t profiteer on bad PPE?
..if you build in those 5 factors UK models may become more accurate? Just a thought: I’m no expert but I di know that variables really screw up data if you don’t adjust for valid ‘influencers’..
Modellers should not feel an obligation to be more “conservative” – in that context the word has no meaning.
Modellers do not decide what happens. Politicians do. All modellers do is supply politicians with what should be ONE data point out of many on which to base its decisions.
The fact that a scary prediction will cause more lockdowns, and therefore save more lives, is both incorrect and outside of the modellers’ expertise. In fact, it is solid science that none of the non-pharmaceutical interventions (masks, lockdowns, school closures, “social distancing”, border closures, passports, contact tracing) had any discernible effect on infection spread. On the other hand it is now very clear that especially lockdowns, masking children, and school closures, are having devastating effects on public health, and all other areas of society.
Anyway, this is not the modellers’ expertise. Their expertise is the model, and that is what they should stick to.
The take-away must be that any politicians who base their decisions ONLY on the modelling is incompetent and must be fired.