health Minister Magnus Heunicke (S) are now being criticised for having tightened and passed through a ‘free interpretation’ of the recommendations on the closure of schools and kindergartens under a closed consultation in the Danish Parliament.
the Consultation was held 12. march – the day after the government announced the massive shutdown of the country.
Here said Heunicke, to the experts of the EU agency, the ECDC recommended that schools and kindergartens had to be closed.
But it is not correct, saith the criticism:
– It is recommended they simply do not, says Else Smith, former director of the national board of Health.
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that was the gist of it, as the government 11. march sent all the students home from school. Video: Ritzau Scanpix
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the Extra Leaf has read the minutes from the consultation meeting, which was held in the health committee and acted on the hastelov, which was needed to carry out the government’s plan.
‘Since we were together last, I have been meeting with my EUROPEAN sundhedsministerkolleger,’ began Heunicke during the consultation 12. march and explained:
‘It started rather unusually with a clear recommendation from the Commission and from the states, the ECDC, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, sundhedsagenturet in Stockholm, who said that they actually recommended that countries at the present time began to work to send people home for homework and to reduce the number of citizens who can be for larger events, and to close the schools and kindergartens’.
‘It was the recommendation of the sundhedskommissæren, it was the recommendation of the commissioner for crisis management, and it was the recommendation of the ECDC. And that is exactly what we sit with in Denmark,’ said Magnus Heunicke.
Later he explained that the government had expected to have to close schools later – ‘perhaps to easter’, it sounded – but that one had moved it forward, because ‘now there as here too, subsequently made a recommendation about it.’
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the Government announced 11. in march, the country’s schools had to be closed during the coronaudbruddet. Photo: Marie Raven
It is precisely Heunickes the laying of that there was a recommendation from the ECDC to shut down schools and nurseries, which now face criticism.
the Same day, released the ECDC, namely a risk assessment, with recommendations about the handling of coronaudbruddet in Europe.
In the coming the experts on ‘actions on and shutdown of the schools.’
But instead of – as Heunicke render – to recommend the decommissioning pointing experts in a number of milder interventions:
‘Before or instead of shutting down should the health authorities reducing the opportunities for transmission of infection at the school, while the children continue to go to school through other actions. These actions can be small groups, increased the physical distance between students in the classroom, information on hand hygiene and outdoor education,’ writes the ECDC suggests that sick children and staff should be sent into isolation.
for Extra Blade stresses ECDC, to not recommended the total closure as the first step – neither during the meeting with the health ministers in the EU or in the risk assessment.
‘the ECDC have said all the time, that the national authorities must first consider to reduce the chances of spread of infection in schools through other action than to close the schools,’ writes the ECDC, in a reply to Ekstra Bladet, and points out that is not given direct advice to Denmark in the case.
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In the report writing, the ECDC, there is limited scientific evidence for the effect of a shutdown, and therefore calls on the countries to think carefully about, before they close the schools.
school closures should be considered with caution,’ writes the ECDC, and suggests that the gain by a shutdown must be offset in relation to the negative consequences.
A total shutdown of schools and day-care centres can, according to the ECDC, be necessary, if society is already suffering from the flu, and hospitals are under pressure, or as the experts call a ‘reactive closure’, if the healthcare system is about to collapse.
the Report from the ECDC was shared on Twitter by the EU commissioners for health, and crisis management, with the necessary means for videoconferencing, which Heunicke referred to during the consultation in the Danish Parliament.
Denmark was the second country in the EU after Italy – which announced a massive shutdown of the society.
Since followed all other countries follow suit – aside from Iceland and Sweden, which kept schools and day care centers open.
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day-care institutions were closed and were only used for nødpasning for children of employees in critical functions. Photo: Jonas Olufson
Else Smith, former director of the national board of Health and former member of the board of directors of ECDC, believes that Heunicke have misunderstood the recommendations:
– He can’t use the report and recommendations to say that they recommend the closure of schools and kindergartens. It is simply not what, say, Else Smith.
She, however, considers that the ECDC to go a long way recommend it, as we are now doing in Denmark during the opening:
– It is almost as if we use some of the considerations now, when to open up. It was actually also what they recommended, that we should do, when we closed down. So did we just not.
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Kjeld Møller Pedersen, professor of health economics at the University of Southern denmark, agrees:
– I do not believe that the minister can take the ECDC to the income for it, which the Danish government chose to do. Heunicke has abused the european smitteorganisation (ECDC, red.) to justify the total shutdown, he says and elaborates:
– There are up to several variants, and therefore, you have enough to say to the minister of health has tightened, what he believes, the european organization believes. The friendly version is, that it is free interpretation of what they have written.
Professor Jakob Kjellberg from The National Research and analysis centre for Welfare and health (Vive) also believe that sundhedsministerens reproduction of ECDC’s recommendations is correct:
– You can say that Heunicke have read it at the absolute most restrictive way – and just as well could have read it as a recommendation that in this stage it is not closed the schools, but the increased focus on hygiene and teaching in smaller groups, he says.
Heunicke will not reveal the source
Magnus Heunicke don’t want to make up to the interview with Ekstra Bladet.
He does not want get into the details of what was said at the meeting of EU health ministers, where the recommendation to close the country’s schools were supposedly recited.
‘I don’t have the opportunity to pass on what individual persons said at the closed ministerial meetings in the EU’, he writes, and expresses its satisfaction with the Danish government’s intervention:
‘I can see that it was vital that we acted quickly in Denmark, and that the warnings were clear that we were on the way to smittekæder as in northern Italy. We got that stopped, and I am exceedingly happy with.’
On the question of why he during the consultation said that the ECDC recommended a shut-down, when, in the experts ‘ report include a number of milder interventions as a first step, he answers:
‘as for the report, the ECDC issued, so as to have the and its conclusions have been public and accessible to all.’
the Minister does not address whether his statements during the closed consultation was correct.
Magnus Heunicke do not want to say what was said at the meeting of the EU, which he claims was given a recommendation to close the country’s schools and kindergartens. Photo: Philip Davali/Ritzau Scanpix
