COPENHAGEN (Reuters) – Denmark will again impose restrictions aimed at curbing the rapid spread of COVID-19 including the new Omicron variant, the country’s prime minister said on Wednesday.
The new restrictions include closing primary schools from Dec. 15 and restaurants and bars from midnight on Friday. They also encourage Danes to work from home and cancel social gatherings such as Christmas parties.
“It is still our assessment that it is possible to keep large parts of Danish society open, thanks to the large support for the vaccines,” Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen told a news conference.
She has repeatedly said the government would do everything it could to avoid reintroducing restrictions, but the Nordic country has seen a dramatic jump in new coronavirus cases to record-highs in the past weeks.
Hospitalisations and deaths have so far remained well below the peaks seen around a year ago.
(Reporting by Stine Jacobsen and Nikolaj Skydsgaard; Editing by Alison Williams and Bernadette Baum)
