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Danish abattoir closed over coronavirus cluster

Meat giant Danish Crown announced on Saturday it had closed a large slaughterhouse in Denmark after nearly 150 employees tested positive for the coronavirus.

Published: 9 August 2020 11:12 CEST
Danish abattoir closed over coronavirus cluster
Danish Crown slaughterhouse in Ringsted. Photo: Mads Claus Rasmussen/Ritzau Scanpix

The abattoir in Ringsted, about 50 kilometres (30 miles) from Copenhagen, employs nearly 900 people and slaughters tens of thousands of pigs every week.

Danish Crown said 120 employees tested positive for the virus in a first round of tests of 600 employees present.

It then retested all the negative cases and detected 22 additional infections.

“For this reason, we are closing the abattoir for at least a week to try to break the chain of transmission among employees on site,” Danish Crown said in a statement.

All the employees must quarantine, said the company, one of Denmark's biggest exporters and the biggest pork product producer in Europe.

Several European slaughterhouses have been hit with the coronavirus in recent months, particularly in Germany.

The coronavirus cluster at Ringsted is the main active one in Denmark, where the number of cases has increased sharply in recent days.

On Friday, 169 confirmed cases of the coronavirus were recorded in Denmark, the highest figure for a single day since 25 April. This is according to figures sent by health authorities to the parliamentary parties, DR says.  79 of the new infected are in Aarhus, where the infection seems to have taken hold.

From Thursday to Friday, 145 people were found to be infected in Denmark and 68 in Aarhus.

Due to increasing infection rates in recent weeks, there are doubts about the next phase of the reopening of Denmark. 

From a very low number of new infections at the beginning of the summer holidays, the number of infections has been steadily increasing since week 29.

READ ALSO:  Why coronavirus spike in Aarhus was not caused by a single event

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HEALTH

Are Danes cutting back on cigarettes and alcohol?

Danish stores sold a significantly lower quantity of alcohol and cigarettes over the counter last year, new data from Statistics Denmark show.

Published: 14 June 2024 07:42 CEST
Are Danes cutting back on cigarettes and alcohol?

Some 3,852 cigarettes were sold year, which amounts to 804 per person over the age of 18. But that compares to a figures of 854 per person on 2022.

Cigarette sales in Denmark have been declining since 2018.

Sales of sprits, beer and wine fell by 7.8 percent, 5.3 percent and 0.9 percent respectively.

Danish business sold the equivalent of 44.4 million litres of pure alcohol, which works out at 11.9 units per week on average for each person over the age of 18.

Although that is a lower value than in 2022, it still exceeds the amount recommended by the Danish Health Authority (Sundhedsstyrelsen).

The Health Authority recommends that adults over 18 drink no more than 10 units per week and no more than four in a single day.

READ ALSO: Should Denmark raise the minimum age for buying alcohol?

“The numbers are still too high and it’s an average that could have a skewed distribution,” University of Southern Denmark professor, Janne Tholstrup, said in relation to the alcohol sales figures. Tholstrup has published research on Denmark’s alcohol culture.

That is in spite of a 30-year-trend of falling alcohol consumption, according to the professor.

“The majority of Danes stay under the recommended 10 unite per week. That means there is a large group with a persistently excessive consumption of alcohol,” she said.

The Statistics Denmark figures also show that sales of loose tobacco – such as the type used in roll-up cigarettes and pipes – also fell last year. Some 58 tonnes less were sold compared to 2022.

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