Daria Shamonova
July 31st, 2020

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Quick results ensure people don’t have to isolate while they wait for them (photo: Pixabay)

Ninety-one new coronavirus cases were registered on Thursday, the highest number of infections diagnosed in a single day in Denmark since May 18. It is almost double the cases the day before when only 57 were diagnosed with COVID-19, according to DR.

This increase is linked to a local outbreak at the Danish Crown slaughterhouse in Ringsted.

Jens Lundgren, professor of infectious disease medicine at Rigshospitalet, said that Ringsted has become an infection hotspot and so all 900 employees at the Danish Crown slaughterhouse are going to be tested for the coronavirus.

Situation can escalate quickly  
The current increase in infections serves as a reminder that the situation can quickly escalate at any moment.

Lundgren emphasised that “it will be important to follow the developments in August when many will come home from summer holidays abroad”.

One person has died of the coronavirus in the last 24 hours. This bring to 615 the deaths from COVID-19 in Denmark.

Second wave of COVID-19 expected to hit Europe in September
Researchers predict that a new COVID-19 wave will hit Europe in September and that it will subside after around two weeks. This is stated by Francesco Sannino, professor of theoretical physics at the University of Southern Denmark, and his colleagues Giacomo Cacciapaglia and Corentin Cot from the University of Lyon in France. “Our simulation shows that we will face a similar number of infection cases as this spring if we take the same precautions for social distancing and introduce the same restrictions as we did during the first wave. If we end up not doing that, we risk to face more infection cases then before,” Sannino said.

Parties want government to plan for second wave
Several political parties are calling on the government to present a clear plan of what the country is going to do if the coronavirus starts spreading again, TV2 reports. They are asking for an open discussion of what could be done in order to prevent a new lockdown. They also believe that the government should think about which industries will have to shut down first if another lockdown would be needed.

Large increase in corona infections among immigrants
The majority of those who were infected with the coronavirus last week have an ethnic origin other than Danish, reports DR. Last week, around 146 of 247 infected with COVID-19 were immigrants, which means that 59 percent of those infected do not have a Danish ethnicity. In general, immigrants constitute only 14 percent of the country’s total population so this is an over-representation. Tyra Grove Krause from the Statens Serum Institut told DR that the high infection rate among immigrants might be related to language skills. “It may be difficult to carry out contact tracing in those groups if there is a language barrier.”

Infections at Danish Crown slaughterhouse rise to 32
Sixteen more people have tested positive for COVID-19 at Danish Crown slaughterhouse in Ringsted, which has been hit with a local outbreak of the virus, according to TV2. In total, the number of infected has doubled to 32. Initially, the outbreak was spotted on Wednesday when the slaughterhouse said that three employees were infected with the coronavirus.

Clubs should not reopen – experts
Experts warn against the reopening of discos and nightclubs during the fourth phase of lifting coronavirus-related restrictions, Information reports. The reopening of clubs might lead to a significant increase in coronavirus cases, a scenario which has already happened in some other countries. Jan Pravsgaard, professor of immunology at the University of Copenhagen, said that nightclubs and discos can easily become superspreaders.