In a country that tracks the spread of coronavirus variants as closely as any in the world, the signals have never been more concerning.
By CHICO HARLAN
COPENHAGEN, Denmark – In a country that tracks the spread of coronavirus variants as closely as any in the world, the signals have never been more concerning. Omicron positives are doubling nearly every two days. The country is setting one daily case record after the next. The lab analyzing positive tests recently added an overnight shift just to keep pace.
And scientists say the surge is just beginning.
As omicron drives a new phase of the pandemic, many are looking to Denmark – and particularly the government institute devoted to testing, surveillance and modeling – for warnings about what to expect.
The emerging answer – even in this highly vaccinated, wealthy northern European country – is dire. For all the defenses built over the last year, the virus is about to sprint out of control, and scientists here expect a similar pattern in much of the world.
“The next month will be the hardest period of the pandemic,” said Tyra Grove Krause, the chief epidemiologist at Denmark’s State Serum Institute, a campus of brick buildings along a canal.
Ever since omicron’s emergence in November, the best hope has been that the variant might cause less severe sickness than the delta version it is competing with, which might make this wave more manageable and help covid-19 transition into an endemic disease. But Denmark’s projections show the wave so fully inundating the country, that even a lessened strain will deliver an unprecedented blow.
Scientists caution that the knowledge of omicron remains imprecise. Denmark’s virus modelers have many scenarios, not just one. But even in a middle-of-the-road scenario, Danish hospitals will soon face a daily flow of patients several times beyond what they’ve previously seen.
“This will overwhelm hospitals,” Grove Krause said. “I don’t have any doubt about it.”
In her office building, where she works with a six-person modeling team, she tried to explain why omicron amounted to such a setback in the fight against the pandemic. She likened the virus to a flood, and described how vaccines, under earlier variants, had acted like two barrier walls safeguarding the health system. One barrier resulted from the vaccines’ ability to reduce the probability of infection, keeping spread low. The other barrier stemmed from the diminished likelihood of severe sickness and death. Both barriers had some holes, but together, they assured the floodwaters never got too high.
But now, she said, the first barrier has been largely removed. Denmark’s data shows people with two doses to be just as vulnerable to omicron infection as the unvaccinated. Those who’ve been boosted have better protection – a sign of hope – but meantime some three of four Danes have yet to receive a third dose, making the majority of the country vulnerable.
That dynamic, coupled with a variant far more transmissible than the one from last winter, means any Danish person is now dramatically more likely to come in contact with the virus – including the old and the frail, as Denmark’s demographics skew older, like much of the West. The water will now flow through the holes in the second wall.
At her double-panel computer, Grove Krause pulled up the institute’s latest projections, which scientists were still tweaking before releasing to the public on Saturday. The range of possibilities is wide but the very best scenario – which is unlikely, she said – shows daily hospitalizations matching the…
