COPENHAGEN, Denmark (LifeSiteNews) — The Danish government will lift all COVID-19 restrictions as of February 1, and wants to stop classifying COVID as a dangerous disease.
“I would like … Covid-19 to no longer be categorized as a disease dangerous to society as of February 1,” wrote Danish Health Minister Magnus Heunicke in a letter to lawmakers.
This would mean the de facto lifting of all domestic restrictions such as mask mandates, vaccine passports, and the early closings of bars and restaurants.
This comes as the Scandinavian country of some 5.8 million people logged more than 46,000 new COVID cases on Tuesday.
“Our current assessment is that the epidemic will soon peak” Heunicke wrote on Twitter, saying he was confident that the government has a “good control of hospitalization rates.”
Heunicke attributed the low rates of hospitalizations to the less severe omicron variant on the one hand, and to the fact that 3.5 millions of Danes have been vaccinated against COVID-19 on the other, though some experts have challenged the idea that COVID vaccines help reduce deaths and hospitalizations based on data collected in various countries.
In addition, according to Channels Television, though the number of people hospitalized is in fact on the rise and has exceeded 900, the Danish Health Authority has said that 35% of those people were hospitalized for another diagnosis.
In neighboring Sweden, health authorities have said they want to keep current COVID restrictions in place at least for another two weeks.
But Swedish Health Minister Lena Hallengren told reporters gathered at a press conference that “a majority of restrictions could be removed by February 9 if the situation has stabilized then.”
Denmark and Sweden are the latest European country to have said they plan to lift or ease their COVID restrictions in the coming days or weeks.
Last week, U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced that his country is to move into mitigated COVID restrictions from January 27, dropping the legal requirement for face masks and COVID passports for entry into certain venues.
The decision came amid rising cases of the new omicron variant. Johnson said that he was prompted to relax measures as COVID infections had “now peaked nationally,” admitting that the crisis is more endemic than pandemic.