After a few weeks of trying to contain the COVID-19 through placing people in quarantine, the Danish government took much more drastic measures the last couple of days.

• New time-limited emergency laws have been put in place, allowing:
  • The closing of schools and other institutes of learning, as well as public institutions in general
  • Forcing people into isolation if they have a dangerous disease
  • Allowing police to force their way into homes without a court order, if the Ministry of Health asks them to do so
  • Prohibiting events over a certain size
  • To put aside certain laws guaranteeing treatments for certain ailments within a certain time frame
  • Make it possible to limit access to public transportation, hospitals, and nursery homes
  • Create protective measures that guarantees delivery of goods
• All public schools, high schools and places of higher education is shut down for two weeks from tomorrow (most closed down today)
• All public cultural institutions (e.g. museums), libraries etc are closed down for two weeks
• All state employees working in non-critical roles are sent home with pay for the next two weeks. If they can work from home, they should do so, otherwise they will get a paid leave.
• Courts have closed down for the next two weeks, except in exceptional situations
• The travel from certain places (Italy, Iran, China, parts of South Korea, different parts of Europe) are restricted, in the sense that you are forced to a mandatory examination
• The government has asked for all events with more than 100 people to cancel the next two weeks
• The government has suggested that cafe, restaurants, and bars consider closing down the next two weeks
• The government has asked everybody to try to limit their travel on public transportation, especially during peak hours
• The government has suggested that all private schools, high schools, and institutes of learning close down the next couple of weeks
• The government has asked all private employers to get their employees to work from home or use their vacation if possible
• The government has suggested that private religious congregations, museums etc close down for the next two weeks

As you can see, the actions taken are quite far-reaching, and affect most Danes. Personally, I will be working from home the next two weeks, communication with colleagues via the internet. For a lot of introverts, this probably sounds fantastic, for me, as an extrovert, it is not something I look forward to.

I am not too happy about the temporary law allowing the police to force their way into homes without a court order on behalf of the Ministry of Health, but I guess I can see the need for it under certain circumstances. If it is misused, the police and/or the Ministry of Health can be dragged in front of a court (unlike in some countries, people actually occasionally win over the state in Denmark).

The reason the Danish government is taking these actions, is because the spread of the virus was getting out of control, and because the Italian health minister warned Denmark that they needed to take drastic actions to avoid getting into a similar situations as Italy.

The measures taken is an attempt to both try to limit the spreading of the disease and to protect the most vulnerable. Before this, the idea was to contain the virus through asking people to go into quarantine – this clearly didn’t work, as the spread has more than doubled every day this week.

Generally, the steps taken by the government are widely supported, though a large minority believe that the whole threat is overblown. None of the later group appears to be working in health care or similar.

For more coverage, see The Local which has made the article free to read.