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COVID-19

Denmark has ‘basis’ for further lifting of Covid-19 restrictions

Current Covid-19 infection rates in Denmark provide the ‘basis’ for a further lifting of restrictions, health minister Magnus Heunicke said on Tuesday.

Published: 9 March 2021 17:07 CET
Denmark has 'basis' for further lifting of Covid-19 restrictions
Health minister Magnus Heunicke. Photo: Jens Dresling/Ritzau Scanpix

The reproduction rate or R-number for Covid-19 in Denmark is currently estimated to be 1.0, Heunicke wrote on Twitter. The measure is an estimate of whether an infection is spreading in society.

A number of 1.0 indicates that 10 people infected with the virus will infect 10 others, and that the epidemic will therefore not grow.

The figure was last week calculated to be 0.9. At this number, the epidemic will want because 10 infected people would only pass the virus to 9 others.

Because the R-number is 1.0, “we have the basis for a further controlled reopening (of society),” Heunicke wrote.

The figure is calculated based on infection numbers registered over the last week as well as the number of recent hospitalisations.

The national infectious disease agency, SSI, has estimated the R-number for the more infectious variant B117 to be 1.14, however. As such, the number of people infected with the variant will increase. The calculation for B117 uses data reaching further back than that for the general R-number.

B117, first identified in the United Kingdom late last year, now constitutes 80 percent of new cases in Denmark.

SSI has said it will no longer calculate a separate R-number for the variant.

When the government announced the slight lifting of restrictions on March 1st, it said infection trends would be reviewed before deciding whether to allow additional reopenings at schools by March 15th.

READ ALSO: Expected completion of Danish vaccination programme delayed by three weeks

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COVID-19

Public Health Agency recommends two Covid doses next year for elderly

Sweden's Public Health Agency is recommending that those above the age of 80 should receive two doses of a Covid-19 vaccine a year, once in the spring and once in the autumn, as it shifts towards a longer-term strategy for the virus.

Published: 23 December 2022 10:53 CET
Public Health Agency recommends two Covid doses next year for elderly

In a new recommendation, the agency said that those living in elderly care centres, and those above the age of 80 should from March 1st receive two vaccinations a year, with a six month gap between doses. 

“Elderly people develop a somewhat worse immune defence after vaccination and immunity wanes faster than among young and healthy people,” the agency said. “That means that elderly people have a greater need of booster doses than younger ones. The Swedish Public Health Agency considers, based on the current knowledge, that it will be important even going into the future to have booster doses for the elderly and people in risk groups.” 

READ ALSO: 

People between the ages of 65 and 79 years old and young people with risk factors, such as obesity, diabetes, poor kidney function or high blood pressure, are recommended to take one additional dose per year.

The new vaccination recommendation, which will start to apply from March 1st next year, is only for 2023, Johanna Rubin, the investigator in the agency’s vaccination programme unit, explained. 

She said too much was still unclear about how long protection from vaccination lasted to institute a permanent programme.

“This recommendation applies to 2023. There is not really an abundance of data on how long protection lasts after a booster dose, of course, but this is what we can say for now,” she told the TT newswire. 

It was likely, however, that elderly people would end up being given an annual dose to protect them from any new variants, as has long been the case with influenza.

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