Hi - first time poster (long time lurker).
I am from Denmark and we have been mentioned a lot in this and other threads and I would like to correct a few misconceptions. We have done quite well so far in the epidemic in terms of deaths and infections although not as well as our close neighbors from Norway but quite a lot better than Sweden, and many have said that it is due to our early and hard lock down. Well it was early (March 11th IIRC) but it wasn’t especially hard. We were never told not to leave our homes and many shops, garden centers and DIY-stores remained open. I know only one person (a dentist) who didn’t work until society opened up a few weeks ago but a lot of us worked from home. Restaurants, gyms, hairdressers, theaters and sports events were closed but it was hardly a draconian lock down like we have seen in other parts of Europe. My sister lives and works in Stockholm, Sweden which has been seen as a country that didn’t do anything to prevent the spread of covid, but that isn’t true either. They may have been able to go to the restaurants and gyms and such things, but many of the other restrictions were also in place there.
I think that what worked in Denmark (and Norway, Germany and other countrys) was that the early lock down bought time to get the test and trace scheme up and running before the numbers got out of hand. Sweden has tested much less and are only now ramping up the numbers of tests. A big part of the problem in Sweden also relates to their failure to protect the care homes where a majority of their fatalities have occured.
Denmark started reopening the schools after the easter break and didn’t see any spike in numbers, which surprised the politicians while the experts were less surprised. So it wasn’t the closing of the schools itself that seems to be why we have done comparatively well.
We are now starting to open up the borders from monday 15th to Norway, Iceland and Germany - all countries that have done as well or better than us, so nobody is expecting any spikes from that either.
Hardly anybody in Denmark wear masks except when taking an internationsl flight. The scientists have claimed all along that there is no known advantages from wearing them and that they may give a false sence of security which may result in less strict observance of more important social distance tools (like keeping the distance from others and keeping a high level of personal hygiene).
I don’t for a minute think that we are out of the woods yet - we may see a second wave and it may come sooner than we think. In the last week there have been several Black Lives Matter demonstrations in Denmark including one in Copenhagen with 15.000 participants. That may be the kind of event that could trigger a second wave.
Given Florida’s current state of increasing infections, it is possible that the upcoming Trump acceptance speech in Jacksonville FL may well result in asuperspreader event, which could potentially lead to 10’s or even 100’s of thousands of infections all by itself. Many of the 15,000 participants will not be distancing or wearing masks out of fealty to Trump.
Time will tell. Watch the numbers in Florida from Sept 10 onwards.
The folks in places like Japan or Korea have been pretty consistent with this message. I tend to ignore everything coming out of the USA these days, because I feel that you are currently a failed state.
Japan didn’t do any real shutdown, do agree with them on that? Denmark has low numbers, are they all wearing masks?
Point me to a study that convinced North American medical officers to start recommending masks, if you please. Don’t tell me “well, the Japanese swear by them”.
Can back up our new Danish fellow claims for my country (Slovenia too) too. Including protests (up to 500 people gatherings are now legal). Tourists from selected countries with good viral picture are free to come, not sure about Denmark, but I’ve seen some quite a few German speaking tourists here today. Epidemic is basically over, but high vigilance is in the air. There are dozen of epidemiology operative crews to be alerted for every new potencial hot spot emerging. And there was one last week. Contained, hopefully, with 16 new cases. Total of 22 active cases as today for whole country. But still, as for me, I will not sleep sound until properly vaccinated.
So, I’d say second wave is not necessary inevitable, if you didn’t screw it in the first place. And if you then stay vigilant. Go. Learn. Adapt. Survive. I believe that was South Korean tactics from the first moment too.
Nothing has changed. Masks have always helped stop the wearer from spreading to others. Months ago the advice we saw, especially quoted in the media, was all about whether the masks helped stop the wearer getting infected. The answer to this was that they were much less effective in that direction. As the balance between droplet and aerosol routes is better appreciated things change a little.
Something people forget about surgical masks, and much other garb. Before HIV they were by default worn to protect the patient, not the wearer. It was the advent of HIV, and better appreciation of the dangers of other infectious greeblies that made them part of the defensive PPE.
So much of questions and conversations we see about Covid, and other maladies, is how I help myself, and very little about how I help others. Which says a lot about modern society.
No, medical officers didn’t recommend masks for the reasons Euphoria-DK gave above. People generally don’t use a mask properly so they aren’t very effective but do give a false sense of security that leads to people forgetting about social distancing. I’ve seen people admit that but still think masks are good because they symbolize that you take the disease seriously.
The guidelines changed, not because of the studies on face masks at the time. The guidance changed because of the studies on the spread of infection from asymptomatic people.
Since then (all from 6/12-6/13/20):
Several studies are showing that face masks may play a role in reducing the spreading of coronavirus.
I find the first graph on this page to be very informative. It tracks on a daily basis deaths only, and includes a line representing a 7 day average. It can be sorted state by state. If you looked at my state, Illinois, it is clear that the first wave, although no longer peaked, is still with us here.
