Japan, Israel, Portugal, Germany, Australia, Czech Republic, etc. The list of countries that during the last year have been presented as a “miracle against the coronavirus” is as long as it is disappointing. Almost all of them have scored specific successes in managing the epidemic. Is the AI low? Explanations about their secret expire when they upload again. Do they vaccinate too quickly? In a few months, stagnant.
The example. Not all nations have scored as resounding successes as their failures. For some, the “best” in managing the epidemic, the former have outnumbered the latter. Denmark is one of them. To date, it has fully vaccinated 76% of its population, has contained its AI below 300 since the beginning of the year and has limited its excess mortality during the most critical months of the COVID. By any point of view, it is one of the successes of the pandemic.
Why? If we have learned something during the last year, it is that the key to success is not cultural (uneven performance of like-minded countries in a region) but multifactorial. The latter is also true for Denmark, as illustrated by a study carried out by Michael Bang Petersen, Professor of Political Science at Aarhus University, on the responses of various countries to the epidemic. Petersen is in charge of the Hope project (acronym in English for “How democracies deal with covid”), a work on social and political behavior during the pandemic.
After 400,000 interviews conducted since March 2020 in eight nations, including Denmark, they have reached the following conclusions.
Today, Denmark lifted all restrictions & COVID-19 is no longer deemed a “societal threat”.
I led the country’s largest behavioral covid-project (@HopeProject_dk) & advised the Danish gov.
Here are my thoughts on how DK got here, what can be learned & what lies ahead.
🧵 (1/14)– Michael Bang Petersen (@M_B_Petersen) September 10, 2021
The trust. First key: trust in institutions. If a citizen believes in the apparatus of the state to solve their problems, they are more likely to follow its recommendations. In this regard, the Danes have stood out above the rest: 90% of them have shown continued support and trust in the state. A key aspect for its success in vaccination (both for Spain here). And a predictable one, given that Scandinavians have always relied heavily on their institutions.
With nuances, yes. Sweden, a country comparable in every way to Denmark, has been more skeptical about the management of the epidemic. The Danish government has communicated more clearly and precisely, facilitating the acceptance and understanding of measures.
Polarization. The coronavirus has monopolized the public conversation of all countries. In most of them, the political debate has simply been projected on the epidemic. Not in Denmark. “Support falls over time. How quickly it depends on polarization. In Denmark polarization was avoided because the opposition prioritized control of the epidemic over electoral gains. When the second wave arrived, there was a spike in support for the government.” , explains Bang Petersen.
The latter is exceptional. As we saw at the time, the world reached the epidemic in a context of polarization (cultural, political, affective). Spain was a clear example. The coronavirus increased the dynamics. In Denmark, apparently, no. This facilitated the imposition of measures, but also their follow-up, creating a virtuous circle whereby tougher restrictions that would have undermined confidence in the government and fueled opposition were circumvented.
And the non-vigilance. Public trust was also transferred to the citizens themselves. Asked whether “it is completely justified to condemn those who do not maintain a safe distance in public”, the Danes, in general, were quite cautious. Their level of “judgment” towards others has remained comparatively low, reaching just 50% positive responses this year (a percentage second only to the United States, a country culturally ready for individual freedoms).
In other words, there have been fewer “balcony cops”.
Efficiency. The study is interesting because it sheds light on the secret of the functional states. It is not a good hospital network (which too) or apply more or less demanding quarantines or more or less detailed tracking systems (which too) at any given time. It is in many ways a matter of public trust (belief in institutions and other citizens) that makes a country “efficient”.
This does not mean that Denmark has done everything perfectly. One of the strangest episodes of the epidemic came from his hand, when he sacrificed all the minks in the country, buried them quickly and running in mass graves … And the corpses ended up surfacing. His AI has not been null and he has also counted many deaths. But it has done comparatively better than its neighboring countries. What has allowed him to reach September 2021 without restrictions.
Image: Sanshiro Kubota / Flickr