Editor’s Note: Karoline Lehmann lives in Aalborg, Denmark, which is the country’s fourth largest city located in the northern part of Denmark. Karoline was an exchange student at Byron Center High School for the 2015-2016 school year.
The first reported case of COVID-19 in Denmark was made on Feb. 27. As of April 3, the country had 3,672 reported cases, 139 deaths, and 1,193 people have recovered. By invitation, Karoline wrote this piece about what she was seeing and experiencing in her country. This was written on March 31.
Twenty days ago, our prime minister closed the country down. Twenty days ago our whole world was turned upside down and our normal day-to-day life was put on hold. At first people went crazy. The pictures from the grocery stores all over the country was shocking and the exact opposite of what Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen had told people to do. People were hoarding and it all looked like a bad case of Black Friday on steroids. Frederiksen told us to calm down because even though the country was closing our schools, restaurants, borders, etc. we wouldn’t be closing the grocery stores or pharmacies and we would still allow trucks with supplies and groceries to cross the border.
Luckily that helped and people slowed down. As I said before, we are now on our twentieth day of lockdown. It still isn’t a full lockdown like in Italy or France. We are still allowed to go outside in smaller groups. At the moment we are allowed to be up to 10 people at once, but we are advised not to, just as we are advised to stay around 10 feet away from people and meet outside instead of inside someone’s house.
And we are doing okay. We are still on the green graph (low end), especially in the north of Denmark, where there have not been very many cases and not a lot of people in the hospitals. It’s a different story in our capital, but still on the green graph. The reason for that is definitely because people are listening to the government. They are staying inside and aren’t going to others houses. And we are helping each other! Even though Danes have a reputation that they like to keep to themselves and mind their own business, people are really coming together and helping their neighbors with everything from grocery shopping to walking their dog or bringing cakes to their doorsteps. It’s amazing to see how we can stand together in crisis times like these.
With that being said it is still a weird time for everyone. The city is almost ghost-like with no people and closed stores. Queen Margarthe II even gave a speech, which is normally only something she does on New Year’s, and no regent has done since World War II. On Instagram you see videos of fitness instructors who do classes outside big residential buildings so people can join in from their balconies and on Facebook you read appreciation posts of both our government and prime minister and our workers in all the critical jobs ranging from healthcare and social workers to truck drivers and the people working in the grocery stores.
Twenty days have gone by since we closed down due to this virus. It has been 20 days with fear, panic and uncertainty, but also 20 days where both the people in Denmark but also everywhere else in the world have shown adaptability, kindness and hope. We have survived the first 20 days, we can do 20 more, and 20 more after that, if that is what is needed of us to fight this pandemic.
