Two weeks ago, Denmark decided that COVID-19 should no longer be considered “as a threatening disease for society”, judging its high vaccination coverage sufficient in the face of the slightest severity of the Omicron variant. Should Quebec follow this example?
“We are ready to emerge from the shadow of the coronavirus. We say ‘goodbye’ to restrictions and ‘welcome’ to the life we knew before,” Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said when announcing the lifting of restrictions on February 1.
Despite an appeal from the head of the World Health Organization not to declare victory too quickly, the country has decided to “live with the virus” at all costs. This return to “the life before” is occurring despite record rates of contamination and hospitalizations. The country has been reporting more than 46,000 new daily cases on average since last week, which equates to nearly 8,000 new cases per million people.
Its infection rate is currently higher than that of any other country in the world, after the Faroe Islands. There are even 30 times more cases per million people in Denmark than in Canada.
Despite the explosion of cases, all restrictions, such as the obligation to wear a mask in closed spaces and on public transport, have been lifted since 1er February. Very few restrictions remain in place on entry into the country, but only for unvaccinated travelers arriving from a country outside the Schengen area.
It is above all vaccine immunity – and that acquired by a previous infection –, the low severity of hospitalizations and a societal consensus which allows the country to get rid of its restrictions. More than 81% of the population of Denmark is adequately vaccinated. In Quebec, 81.2% of the population received two doses of vaccine, and 85.8% received at least one.
“We have an extremely high number of adults vaccinated with three doses, that’s our secret,” epidemiologist Lone Simonsen, a professor at Roskilde University, told The Canadian Press.
More than 60% of Danes received a booster dose, compared to 49% in Quebec.
Omicron, the turning point
Even if hospitalizations reach an unprecedented level in this northern European country, intensive care remains stable: of the 1,523 hospitalized patients, 31 are in intensive care, including only 13 on respirators. Only 2% of patients end up in intensive care, compared to 6% in Quebec.
For the doctor-epidemiologist at the National Institute of Public Health of Quebec Gaston de Serres, the increased contagiousness and the lower virulence of the Omicron variant have certainly “changed the game” everywhere in the world. Because if the effectiveness of vaccines against infection has greatly decreased with the arrival of the new variant, it has not however varied much in terms of protection against severe forms of the disease.
According to the National Health Council of Denmark, immunity to infection with the Omicron variant in the population has been reduced: it was around 65% with the Delta variant, then is now around 46% with the new variant.
However, protection against severe forms of COVID-19 caused by Omicron would remain high, at around 80%. It would be the same data for Quebec, according to Dr. De Serres. “And it’s even higher with the third dose. »
However, even if at least 2 million Quebecers have contracted COVID-19 since the beginning of December, there are still several vulnerable people, warns the INSPQ specialist.
“It is complicated to know what level of immunity we have in the population, but we are certain that there are still a lot of individuals who would be vulnerable to getting an infection. […] These people will necessarily encounter the virus and a proportion of them will end up in hospital, ”he recalls.
Adherence to measures
The Danish strategy sparked a big international reaction, having become the first country in the European Union to lift all restrictions related to the pandemic. Despite everything, the lifting of restrictions is the subject of a broad political and scientific consensus, judging that the epidemic situation has changed.
“A majority of the population supports the lifting of all restrictions,” said on Twitter Michael Bang Petersen, professor of political science at Aarhus University who advises the Danish government on the pandemic.
After two years of the pandemic, this strategy is supported by the majority of the country. 64% of Danes trust the government’s health policy, according to a poll published by the daily on Monday politics.
In Quebec, adherence to health measures seems to be losing some ground, says Catherine Des Rivières-Pigeon, professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Quebec in Montreal.
“Until now, even if we sometimes heard the opposite, there has been strong support for health measures for a long time. The latest data show a still quite strong membership, but I have the impression that it has changed. […] We see several surveys that seem to show a fairly significant loss of support for the measures, ”she notes.
The infection by Omicron of a large proportion of the Quebec population as well as the high vaccination rates of the province would explain, among other things, the change in vision of the virus. “Obviously, it changes the way people look at having had the disease. Their gaze is transformed, and especially those who have had it in a fairly light way, ”adds the professor.
“The fact of lifting the measures, obviously, people like it, but it comes with the fact that it allows the transmission of the virus and that we allow people to end up in hospital”, warns Dr. De Serres. The important thing is to find the right balance which will allow the recovery of different facets of society while sufficiently controlling the epidemiological situation, he summarizes.
Should Denmark have waited until all concerns were resolved? “Maybe,” Michael Bang Petersen wrote on Twitter. “But waiting is not free. It has costs in terms of the economy, well-being and democratic rights. Balancing these elements is an explicit part of the Danish strategy. »
This is not the first time that the Scandinavian kingdom has bet on a return to normality. On September 10, Denmark lifted the restrictions before reintroducing the health passport in early November.