After almost two months without corona restrictions, Denmark will reintroduce the corona pass due to the sharp rise in the number of Covid-19 cases.
Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen announced this on Monday. Denmark was previously the first country in Europe to dissolve almost all corona rules.
“The competent committee has recommended that the government reclassify the coronavirus as a ‘socially threatening disease’ and reintroduce the corona pass. The government will follow this recommendation,” Frederiksen said at a news conference Monday evening.
At the end of last week, health authorities warned that hospitals would become “congested” due to the advancing coronavirus. “But it’s going even faster than expected,” said Frederiksen. On Monday, more than 2,000 new cases were reported in Denmark, a country of 5.8 million inhabitants, for the fifth day in a row.
In September, the Danish government decided, based on the figures and the vaccination rate, that the coronavirus was ‘no longer critical’ for society and that strict measures were therefore no longer justifiable. Since then, there has been a strong focus on testing. Furthermore, nowhere in the country did you have to wear a mask or keep your distance, festivals were organized, and even the corona pass, which was no longer required in most places, was also abolished for large gatherings.
Suddenly corona measures are in jeopardy: “If the opposition keeps its leg stiff, there is a problem.”
The Danish authorities were previously among the first countries to introduce the health card. The pass was already rolled out in April as a way to reopen business and get the economy back on track after times of lockdown, much earlier than in many other countries. You also had to show a QR code at the hairdresser in Denmark, for example.
The corona pass will now be reintroduced in bars, restaurants and nightclubs.
