Denmark set to end all Covid-19 restrictions from February 1st

Denmark has just announced its intentions to remove all of its remaining Covid-19 restrictions, starting from Tuesday February 1st. 

Despite a huge surge in cases, with a 7-day average of well over 40,000 cases, Danish health minister Magnus Heunicke wrote to the Danish parliament stating that the country is no longer deeming Covid-19 to be a “socially critical disease.”

For the music industry, in particular festival organisation Dansk Live, the news is “unbelievably positive.” As the news suggests, concerts and musical events will be able to operate just as they did prior to the Covid-19 pandemic. Esben Marcher told the Danish newspaper Ekstra Bladet:

“It’s unbelievably positive. This means that the venues can once again do standing concerts. So now it is approaching that you can do things as you usually do. And we are of course happy about that.”

However, Marcher couldn’t ignore the fact that financial assistance will still be required for the industry to thrive once again; many venues are reliant on volunteers to keep the industry afloat. The head of volunteers and operations for heavy metal festival Copenhell, Kamilla Roed, brought light to the situation and how it can be managed going forward:

“There will of course be a focus on how we can revive volunteering after almost three years with corona. Whether it is a venue or a festival, there have been shutdowns and major changes. We need to share good experiences and ideas with each other so we all get back to our full potential.”

Several countries across Europe have also recently announced the easing of restrictions; Norway are increasing capacity limits for events and the Netherlands are set to slowly reopen music venues, who only weeks ago extended their lockdown. 

With Denmark removing their restrictions, it’ll be interesting to see how other countries across the world handle the pandemic, as many countries have obtained high vaccination rates.

Image Credit: Visit Copenhagen