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Brostrom, who runs the Danish health service, did not hesitate to tell the media that single people did not need to remain celibate, listing the risks without discouraging intimacy, which he said was a natural necessity. The former gynecologist’s outspoken pragmatism helped his agency maintain an enviable level of public support even in tough decisions, such as when the Danes had to take on other nations in March after deciding to stop distributing AstraZeneca Plc.
Denmark is reaping the benefits of this confidence: in the European Union, the country has the highest vaccination coverage after Malta, allowing for the gradual removal of COVID-19 restrictions while maintaining a low burden of infections.
In preparation for a possible winter wave, Brostrom continues to maintain clear and direct communication. For example, to speed up the vaccination of the Islamic community in Copenhagen, he visited three mosques.
“Immediately after Friday prayer at Denmark’s largest mosque, the imam gave me a microphone and I had the opportunity to address people,” Brostrom told Zoom. “This has never happened before in our country.”
The number of new COVID-19 cases in a country of 5.8 million people has averaged less than 900 per day in the past month, and just over 200 deaths have been recorded in the past six months. Since the end of April, Denmark has gradually opened restaurants and sports stadiums. The mask obligation was lifted in June.
As of Friday, Danes no longer need to show so-called crown passports at public events, the latest pandemic restriction.
“Radical transparency”
Denmark’s position is a positive sign for many countries that have stepped up their vaccination programs in the hope that life will return to normal, despite the prevalence of a highly contagious delta strain. This strain is also dominant in Denmark.
“Denmark is a great example,” said Catherine Bennett, director of the Department of Epidemiology at Deakin University in Melbourne. “The Danes have drastically reduced the number of cases, despite having started attending events and easing controls.”
According to Christian Andersen, a professor of immunology and microbiology at the Scripps Research Institute in California, Denmark’s response to the pandemic began “unevenly.” Andersen, himself a Danish, has publicly criticized the country’s original approach, which rejected “quarantine, extensive testing, face masks and other efforts to control the virus” and toyed with a “public immunity” strategy similar to Sweden’s.
Denmark changed course when the government replaced its own public health authorities.
“And he did well,” Andersen said, adding that the country is currently among the most active. “Now that people have been widely vaccinated, the Danes are on the right track, but new challenges will emerge in a couple of months.”
Vaccine controversy
Denmark was the first EU country to forgo the AstraZeneca vaccine for safety reasons, and later the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. Brostrom, a member of the WHO executive board, says his agency has opted for “radical transparency” and has kept the public informed through websites, memos, publications and press conferences, explaining its controversial decision.
“This has allowed us to maintain a very high level of confidence in vaccines,” he says.
According to S. Brostrom’s calculations, 99 percent. health workers are fully vaccinated, as are 95 percent. Adults over 50 years of age. It is expected to achieve more than 80% in Denmark. public immunity. “It’s good, but not good enough yet.”
A third dose of the vaccine is currently offered to organ transplant recipients and cancer patients receiving chemotherapy, and booster vaccines have also been introduced for older people living in nursing homes. According to Brostrom, the government is purchasing additional supplies for a wider population, although how and when the additional dose will be available has yet to be decided.
Brostrom’s pragmatism first made headlines in 2020 in April, when he was hacked into a press conference to see if he could have sex alone despite the pandemic.
“It just came to our notice then. We are sexual beings. Sex is healthy. Sex is good, he says.” The Danish health service stands up for sex “has become a memorandum.
Pandemic sex
S. Brostrom, who was a midwife and gynecologist before joining the government, explained that COVID-19 cannot be transmitted through sperm or vaginal fluid, but that close physical contact poses the risk of inhaling the virus.
Mr. Brostrom then checked the recommendations from other countries and found that the Danish Health Service was one of the few that discussed the issue in general and made recommendations on their website.
“Virtually no one has offered any advice on safe sex during the Covid-19 pandemic, which is certainly surprising because sex is part of human health,” Brostrom says. “Of course we should give advice on how to care for children, how to care for sick people, how to have sex.”
At the beginning of the pandemic, Danish government officials began working with behavioral researchers, using weekly data to verify public confidence in health councils, including vaccination, and to address specific concerns in various demographic groups, Brostrom says. .
“This has allowed us to apply communication and initiatives in a very focused way,” he says. “Public health communication usually reaches educated women, but never young or uneducated men, but we managed to do it during a pandemic,” says Brostrom. “And I’m very proud of that.”
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