COVID-19 Outbreak (Update: More than 2.9M cases and 132,313 deaths in US)

Denmark were one of the first European countries to shut everything down. We are also the country with the highest population density in all of Scandinavia (129 per km2), Sweden is second with 23 per Km2)

Yet despite this fact we have currently lost a little over 92/million inhabitants to Covid 19 and Sweden despite being far more spread out populationwise stand at 342/million

What they did here when they shut everything down in early march was to start an extensive information campaign. Simultaneously they passed a lot of emergency aid packages.
Employers who had to send their employees home could get the salary expenses reimbursed. Company Tax payments were defered for a year and many other aid packages all designed to make sure that as few people as possible would lose their jobs. They also waived all requirements that would usually be mandatory in order to get unemployment benefits.

We have never had a "real lockdown" in the sense that people would be required to stay at home, but non essential stores and shopping malls were shut as were all restaurants, entertainements etc... Those shops which were open used wide strips of tape to enact social distancing by marking lines 6 feet appart and making "one-way lanes" among the goods and boxes with latex gloves and bottles with rubbing alcohol available at the entry and exit doors.

The key focus here are social distancing. No isolation or lock down. My husband and I are both only a few years from reaching 60 years of age and we have both had serious health issues but despite that we have seen our daughter and grand daughter 4 times over the last 2 months. All four times has been outside, where we have spend a few hours in our local woods walking and talking together but staying 6 feet appart all the time. Even our 3 year old granddaugher has understood the situation and have learned to give "airhugs and kisses". Despite not being able to touch each other we have still managed to get some real quality time together. (but 6 feet appart)

Masks are not mandatory here and most dont use them - despite that our R0 is 0.7

What is emphazied are 4 things

Extreme hygiene. Wash/use rubbing alchohol whenever you touch something outside your own house and ensure that everything you bring home is carefully cleaned. Dont touch your face with your hands and dont go out if you feel even a little bit ill.

Social distancing. Emphazised everywhere. One way sidewalks, commuter trains where free seat reservations are mandatory to ensure 6 feet between every passenger, a bazillion signs all saying "keep your distance" and no gatherings of more than 10 people are allowed.

Work from home/stagered hours. If at all possible - work from home. Since many jobs CAN be done from home, many businesses are still business as usual. Other businesses used stagered hours so that instead of everyone working from 9-5 some would work from 6 to 2 and others from 2 pm - 8 pm. That again enabled the use of social distancing at the workplace and kept the business open.

Single point of entry if you got sick. If you experience symptoms which could be Covid-19, you just call a specific telephone number and you would be given advice about what to do, how to get tested and what hospital to check into if the symptoms were bad.

Now 2 month later we have less than 300 people in hospital with Covid-19, R0 at 0.7 and falling and are beginning to open things up again but under the strict admonition that if people stop following the "rules" then they shut things down again. Kids are back in school, hairdressers are allowed to open as are shopping centers and outdoor sports (no spectators)


That looks like a reasonable plan. And frankly not that different from what was supposed to be going on in the United States. We really have never been in "lock down" or totally closed anywhere in the United States. It's stricter in some places and looser in others. We just act like we are all in prison because Americans are not used to being told what to do and we lack the same sense of unity that countries like Denmark have. In part because our culture isn't close to being as homogeneous as I understand Denmark is and because we are so much larger that our differences are greater.

We are all about the individual, our individual cities, states, and even neighborhoods. And not so much the whole although we occasionally pay lip service to being unified. We went through two months of something not that different from what you describe and many Americans are going stark raving mad.