On 31 December 2019, China announced the discovery of a cluster of pneumonia cases in Wuhan. The first Danish case was reported on 27 February, and prime minister Mette Frederiksen announced lockdown measures on 11 March effective from 13 March. Following a period of consistent increases in hospitalisations, the number of people in hospital with COVID-19 fell from March onwards, with the number of cases in need of intensive care and ventilator units, also peaking in late March. Starting on 15 April, a very slow and gradual reopening was initiated.
In an attempt to reduce the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Frederiksen Cabinet introduced large economic packages with the support of all parties in the Folketing. The Danish GDP fell by 2.7% in 2020, less than in many other countries.
Background
On 12 January 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed that a novel coronavirus was the cause of a respiratory illness in a cluster of people in Wuhan, Hubei, China, which was reported to the WHO on 31 December 2019. The case fatality ratio for COVID-19 has been much lower than SARS of 2003, but the transmission has been significantly greater, with a significant total death toll.
Timeline
February 2020
From late January to early February, several groups of Danish citizens were evacuated from China. All were placed in quarantine and tested; none were infected.
At the very end of February, three men tested positive for the virus. On 27 February 2020, Denmark confirmed its first case, a man from Roskilde who had been skiing in Lombardy, Italy and returned to Denmark on 24 February. The next day, a man in Copenhagen tested positive. He had been skiing in Italy two weeks earlier, and the relatively long time period made it difficult to determine whether the virus had spread from him to others in that time. On 29 February, a man in Aarhus tested positive; he was believed to have been infected at a medical conference in Germany.
March 2020
On 1 March, a person who was already in home quarantine was tested positive. The person had been in contact with the man tested positive on 28 February.
On 3 March, five people that had visited northern Italy and one person that had visited Iran were tested positive for COVID-19. All six were placed in home quarantine.
On 4 March, there were four more cases confirmed in Denmark and the first confirmed case was reported from the Faroe Islands (an autonomous territory in the Kingdom of Denmark), bringing the total number of confirmed cases to fifteen. All the new cases were placed in home quarantine. The case in the Faroe Islands was a man with mild symptoms that had returned home from a conference in Paris, France.
On 5 March, there were five new confirmed cases. One of the cases was former Danish national football player Thomas Kahlenberg, who had been infected at a birthday party in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. This forced the Danish clubs Brøndby and Lyngby, and the Dutch club Ajax to place some of their players and coaches, who had recently met with Kahlenberg, into quarantine. Kahlenberg described his symptoms as similar to a flu, and he was placed in home quarantine. On the same date, the first Dane that had been confirmed infected on 27 February also became the first Dane to be declared fully recovered.
On 6 March, there were three new confirmed cases, including one in the Faroe Islands (the second case for this archipelago).
On 7 March, there were six new confirmed cases. Most Danes confirmed to be infected with SARS-CoV-2 had contracted it abroad, and they had infected a few people in Denmark (there had been no person-to-person spread within Denmark where the source was unknown).
On 8 March, there were eight new confirmed cases, including a patient first admitted to North Zealand Hospital Hillerød with symptoms resembling pneumonia. Another mild case where the patient was placed in home quarantine was the first person confirmed to have COVID-19 in the North Jutland Region, meaning that all five regions of Denmark now had cases.
On 9 March, there were 53 new confirmed cases, bringing the total in Denmark to 90. Among all those infected, six were in hospital, but none of them required intensive care.
On 10 March, there were 172 new cases, bringing the total in Denmark to 262. Among the new cases was one patient admitted to hospital, bringing the total to seven.
On 11 March, there were 252 new cases, bringing the total in Denmark to 514. One of the cases, who likely had become infected at a meeting where another attendee was infected, caused particular concern because the person worked in a nursing home. As a result, the elderly at the nursing home were isolated in their own rooms, they were closely monitored, and tests were being performed. Among all the infected people in Denmark, ten patients were in hospital, including two in intensive care.
Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen announced major restrictions on this day, asking Danes to act with a sense of collective responsibility and community spirit in the face of coming hardships.
On 12 March, there were 160 new confirmed cases, bringing the total in Denmark to 674. Among these were two at the nursing home where the elderly had been isolated and closely monitored since the day before because an employee was tested positive. On the same date, former footballer Thomas Kahlenberg announced that he had been declared fully recovered, making him the second publicly known recovery in the country. Whereas many early cases were related to people returning from ski holiday in northern Italy, many cases discovered later were related to people returning from ski holiday in Tyrol in Austria.
An 80-year-old man with a history of heart disease tested positive after having a heart attack and dying in the North Jutland Region. Although unclear whether the virus had played a role in it, the authorities counted it as the first fatality related to COVID-19 in Denmark.
On 13 March, there were 127 new confirmed cases, bringing the total in Denmark to 801. In addition, the Faroe Islands had their third confirmed case. Among all the infected people in Denmark, 23 were in hospital, including 4 in intensive care.
On 14 March, there were 26 new confirmed cases in Denmark, bringing the total to 827. Another 6 were confirmed in the Faroe Islands, bringing the total to 9 in this archipelago. The second person died from COVID-19 in Denmark, in the Capital Region. It was an 81-year-old that was already weakened due to other serious diseases.
April 2020
On 6 April, Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen announced what she called the "first phase" of the reopening of Denmark: she announced that nurseries and kindergartens would be opened again on 15 April and that folkeskole would be reopened for pupils in years 1–6 (Danish: 0.-5. klasse); furthermore, the final exams for pupils in year 10 (Danish: 9. klasse), the last year of the folkeskole, were cancelled. Restaurants, cafés and hairdressers were to remain closed until 10 May, and larger gatherings will be prohibited until September.
The Danish Health Authority changed its guideline to say that asymptomatic people can transmit the disease, from saying that the risk was "unconfirmed" or "very small" to "significant". As documented by the Danish newspaper Berlingske, there has long been consensus among experts that this was indeed the case (and it had long been widely reported common knowledge), and the health authority was unable or unwilling to defend their previous claim. It had previously been strongly criticized that workers in a retirement home were asked to continue working after having had contact with sick persons, again against all expert advice, and apparently because of Danish Health Authority guidelines.
May–October
On 12 May, Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen announced a new offensive testing strategy, which aims to "strengthen the contact tracing". The national testing strategy is based on three essential elements: testing, tracing and isolation. The new testing strategy takes a more aggressive approach with broader testing of both symptomatic and asymptomatic individuals. The new testing strategy also charge the local municipalities with providing holiday centres, hotels or the like, as a voluntary offer of self-isolation.
As a part of new offensive testing strategy, the Prime Minister presented a new government agency. The agency will be organised under the Ministry of Justice. The Ministry of Justice said that experience in dealing with COVID-19 in Denmark shows that there is a need for a consistent and transverse coordination and support of government efforts, for example to ensure the supply of socially critical infrastructure. The implementation of the new offensive test strategy, the detection of infection and better possibilities for self-isolation require a massive support from, among other things, the use of the test-system, security of supply and practical operation. At the same time, there is a need for health authorities in such a situation to focus on the core tasks of health care. In order to strengthen more permanently the overall regulatory effort, this new government agency was established. The agency is expected to be fully operational in August 2020.
Masks/face shields become mandatory in public transport in August, with the mandate being extended to most public places in October.
November 2020 and onwards
A major producer of mink pelts, the government ordered all the country's mink nationwide to be slaughtered over fears of viral mutations, following an outbreak of a mutated SARS-CoV-2 virus referred to as Cluster 5.[481] While the State Serum Institute (SSI, Statens Serum Institut) suggested that this mutation was no more dangerous than other coronaviruses, SSI head Kåre Mølbak warned that the mutation could impact the development and effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines. On 5 November, it was announced that a new lockdown and movement restrictions would be implemented in seven municipalities of Northern Jutland beginning 6 November.
Danish Health Authority announced on 14 April 2021 the removal of the Oxford AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine from the Danish vaccination program due to concerns of serious side effects. On 29 June, health minister Magnus Heunicke announced that the government had bought 1.17 million COVID-19 vaccines from Romania. An agreement to phase out the requirement of masks in public was also reasched in June, but was in November reinforced along with several other restrictions.
On the negotiations to reopen society in April 2021, Freja Brandhøj stated on behalf of Danmarks Restauranter & Caféer "We think it's a shame that we couldn't reach an agreement right away".
On 21 January 2022, Denmark had 1.3 million confirmed cases, reaching an all-time high of 20–40 thousand daily cases throughout most of January. In February, most restrictions were lifted, with authorities stating that the virus was no longer a "critical threat".
Testing, treatment and preventive measures
In Denmark, Aalborg University Hospital, Aarhus University Hospital, Hvidovre Hospital, Odense University Hospital, Rigshospitalet and Zealand University Hospital Roskilde have sections prepared for serious cases of COVID-19 that require treatment, as well as patients that are elderly or have pre-existing conditions and therefore are particularly vulnerable to the disease. Other hospitals were required by the regions to prepare lists of non-essential operations that can be postponed. This would allow the manpower, space and equipment to rapidly be allocated towards an outbreak of coronavirus. On 11 March 2020, the first hospitals began postponing non-essential operations as a preparation for future cases of COVID-19, and on 17 March this was done in all hospitals nationwide. Initially, all testing of samples for SARS-CoV-2 was performed at the SSI, but on 25 February (before the first confirmed case in the country) this was expanded to all the hospitals that also had sections that were ready for treating serious cases of COVID-19. In early March, other hospitals started to perform the tests. On 6 March, Aarhus University Hospital made a "drive-through" test facility (similar to those used in South Korea) where a person can be tested without having to leave his/her vehicle, but people using it still have to phone their personal doctor or the doctor-on-call (Danish: Lægevagten) for instructions first. On 10–11 March, Aalborg University Hospital, Regionshospital North Jutland Hjørring and Zealand University Hospital Roskilde introduced "drive-through" test facilities.