“Omicron is benign in a widely vaccinated country” – Liberation

Despite an increase in contamination and deaths, the Danish government has decided to lift health restrictions. Lone Simonsen, an epidemiologist at Roskilde University, explains that the country is banking on the potential passage of the pandemic to endemic.–

Like Sweden, which has lifted many of its restrictions in the face of Covid-19, its Danish neighbor is in the center of attention. Since the beginning of the month, the Scandinavian kingdom has regained “life before”. Goodbye masks, gauges and health passes, the control of the virus is abandoned. He is always “recommended” to isolate themselves for four days in the event of a positive test, but no quarantine is required for contact cases.

Since this decision, comments have been pouring in from all directions as cases start to rise again and the death toll continues to rise in the country. On Twitter and in the international media, Danish scientists continue to defend their model. In an interview at Release, Lone Simonsen, an epidemiologist at Roskilde University, analyzes the situation, which can change quickly given the flexibility and responsiveness of the government. On September 10, Denmark had already tried to lift its restrictions, before reintroducing the health pass two months later.

Why has Denmark decided to lift all Covid-19 restrictions?

Because we are dealing with a mild omicron outbreak. It became clear as the weeks went by that the rapid rise in infections was not coupled with a rise in severe cases, as was the case before the vaccination.

By letting the epidemic slip away, aren’t you worried about the number of severe complications (Pims) in children, less vaccinated (around 50%) and cases of Covid long ?

Many hospitalized children are often quite young and tend to stay there for only three or four hours to be placed under supervision. These cases count towards the number of hospitalizations. Really very few children are sent to intensive care, or worse. The risk of severe cases is very low.

Regarding the long Covids… Well, most of us are vaccinated against the virus [plus de 80 % de la population, ndlr] and it protects against severe cases and death. It’s the best we can do. We are all going to encounter the virus at some point. Our hope is that long Covids will be less severe when the patient is vaccinated.

Since you made this decision, cases have stopped declining and the death toll continues to rise. Was this development anticipated? Could the government reconsider its decision?

The raw death toll is a difficult number to interpret. It includes deaths of people who previously tested positive. The algorithm counts as Covid death anyone who tested positive in the previous month. As the infection rate is very high, more and more deaths are counted as Covid deaths by statistical effect. Currently, there is no excess mortality in Denmark.

The best indicator remains that of patients in the intensive care unit. It is very low in Denmark and continued to decrease during the omicron wave. This is strong evidence that this infection is mild in a widely vaccinated country. Regarding hospitalizations, they are on the rise, but only a quarter of patients hospitalized with Covid are actually treated against Covid.

You start to treat Covid as an endemic disease rather than a pandemic. Can you detail the range of measures taken in this direction?

Like all pandemics, Covid-19 will turn into an endemic disease, that is to say responsible for a winter epidemic as we know for the flu. So in the fall I expect we will control Covid like a flu: by vaccinating the older and frail (with an updated vaccine) while the rest of the population might not have need a new booster after the omicron wave.

We will also put an end to the massification of tests and move to a standby testing strategy. But we will likely maintain an intense testing campaign in hospitals and nursing homes to find out which viruses are causing severe cases.

Finally, I hope that the new hygienic habits will continue. Here, air purifiers are still placed in supermarkets.

The government has also announced plans to end the vaccination campaign in the spring. Is it a good idea ?

Yes, but it will be ready to be reactivated should the need arise during the year.

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