Denmark ordered a national shutdown on Wednesday, closing malls and department stores as Christmas approached and coronavirus cases increased.
Small shops, apart from pharmacies and grocery stores, will also close, the Associated Press reports, and companies are expected to close on December 25th. Hairdressers and beauty shops will close on 21 December.
Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said the closure will be in place until January 3.
“An epidemic that is getting out of control will have bigger consequences and bigger consequences than the one stopped now,” Frederiksen said
Currently, Denmark is in a partial closure that has just been expanded to include the country’s 98 municipalities. According to The Local, Health Minister Magnus Heunicke said during a press conference that 1,808 health workers had contracted the coronavirus last week, indicating a 70% increase in infections.
Heunicke said, “The infection is now across society and in our hospitals. But it is important to say that the health service remains open.”
Frederiksen said new compensation packages for companies will be negotiated when the closure begins.
“We’re doing it because an epidemic that gets out of control will have big consequences and bigger consequences than the one that closes now,” Frederiksen said.
In November, the Danish government tried to eliminate 15 million minks that had become a source of a mutated strain of the coronavirus that had infected several people. The monetary loss of the mink is estimated to have been nearly $ 800 million, a cost the Danish government promised to pay.
According to the World Health Organization’s coronavirus data table, Denmark has confirmed 116,087 cases and 961 deaths from coronavirus. It is currently in the midst of a wave of new cases, like much of the world, breaking the record for most cases recorded on December 13 with 3,552 confirmed cases.