The Week That Was, November 9th – November 15th 2020:

Posted on 15. Nov, 2020 in: TWTW

Coronavirus/ What happened last week:

The minkgate scandal continued to grow – internal communication obtained by Politiken under the freedom of information act revealed how the Danish Veterinary and Food Administration (DVFA) for months deliberately downplayed the risk of corona being transmitted from mink to humans.

Newspapers published alarming images of containers at Danish farms overflowing with mink as the mass cull of millions of the animals continued.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the United States’ leading expert on infectious diseases, said the threat of a new corona virus strain spreading from mink to humans shouldn’t stop covid-19 vaccines from working, as feared by the Danish government.

After Pfizer announced positive early results from its coronavirus vaccine trial, parliament’s Finance Committee appropriated nearly DKK20m ($3m) to test a similar vaccine developed by the National Serum Institute.

A potential Danish vaccine has in early animal trials proven effective against a mutated novel coronavirus strain from mink by successfully beating down the Cluster 5 variant.

Kopenhagen Fur, the world’s largest auction house for furs, announced plans to gradually close down over the next 2-3 years due to the ongoing mass cull of all Danish mink.

Politics/Economy:

Following opposition calls for Food Minister Mogens Jensen  to resign for his role in the ‘minkgate’ scandal both the Social Liberals (Radikale) and Red/Greens said they would wait for the Food Ministry’s internal review before making any final decision regarding his future – national newspapers characterised the government’s handling of the scandal as a ‘stain on Danish democracy’ and ’a massive howler’.

Following the botched attempt to cull Denmark’s entire mink herd the government proposed banning mink farming until the start of 2022 at the earliest.

Danish inflation fell to 0.4%, year on year, in October, down from 0.6% the previous month but remains well above the Euro zone.

Denmark’s exports, boosted by pharmaceutical sales, grew by 4.5% in September as imports declined by 0.5%.

Foreign Affairs/EU:

The New York Times refuted claims by U.S. Ambassador to Denmark Carla Sands that her postal vote in last week’s presidential election was never counted – former U.S. ambassador Rufus Gifford apologised for his predecessor in a tweet:

“I’m so sorry, Denmark. Truth and decency will be back again in 70 days.”

Middelfart-based Dan Bunkering was formally charged with violating EU sanctions by selling jet fuel to Syria via Russian companies.

EU Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides said the European Union is following reports of coronavirus outbreaks in mink farms ’extremely closely’ and not only in Denmark.

Denmark sent 50 respirators to Ukraine to help the local authorities treat covid-19 patients.

Denmark’s Executive Vice President of the European Commission Margrethe Vestager said a probe into Amazon confirmed that the internet retail giant is in breach of EU antitrust rules,

Social Affairs:

Five members of the anti- Islam ‘‘Stram Kurs’ (Hard Line) party were expelled from Belgium, Thursday and banned for a year on suspicion of planning to burn a Koran in the immigrant-dominated Molenbeek-Saint-Jean district of Brussels – the Belgian authorities had already warned party leader Rasmus Paludan to stay away after he was thrown out of France the previous day where he had planned to burn the Koran at the Arc de Triomphe in Paris.

Business:

It’s full speed ahead in the USA for Danish wind-energy companies following climate change denier Donald Trump’s impending departure from the White House – according to senior Sydbank analyst Jacob Pedersen, it makes a massive difference to clean energy giants such as Vestas and Orsted that Joe Biden, who has major ambitions for sustainable energy, won the election instead of ‘wind turbine hater’ Trump.

Low-cost Irish airline Ryanair cancelled all flights between Denmark and the UK, Monday, after the British government ordered that all flight crews on those routes must quarantine for 14 days due to widespread coronavirus outbreaks at Danish mink farms.

The latest Statistics Denmark figures showed the number of overnight stays in hotels, tourist apartments, campsites, rural tourism accommodation and hostels fell by more than 50% during the first eight months of the year, from a high of 14.6m in 2019 to around 6 million during the year’s first eight months

Danish pension funds have invested so heavily in green projects over the past year that they are already ahead of schedule on their ambitious proposals laid out last year.

And That Was the Week That Was, November 9th – November 15th 2020: To read all the above articles in full see: http://seven59.dk/archive (subscription required).