I will be flying to Denmark on Tuesday 24 August coming from Germany. As far as I can see, the rules for entry of EU Schengen residents are fairly straightforward: simply present your vaccination certificate (I have the German CovPass app but also a paper copy of the completed vaccination) and no test should be required. However, just a few days ago a bunch of friends were refused entry without a PCR test. They were, however, on a German cruise ship. I will be visiting for a similar length to them, about 6 hours, only flying in then leaving again.

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has called a press meeting today at 2:00 p.m. to announce the long-term pandemic strategy. It is, I think, unlikely the scheduled upcoming phase of easing restrictions on September 1 will change significantly.

“Statsminister Mette Frederiksen (S) indkalder mandag til pressemøde, hvor hun vil give en status på coronasituationen i Danmark.
Pressemødet finder sted klokken 14 i Statsministeriet, fremgår det af en indkaldelse til mødet.
Det er første gang siden 24. februar, at der afholdes et statuspressemøde om coronasituationen i Statsministeriet.”

Statsministeren vil mandag give status på corona i Danmark
https://www.berlingske.dk/politik/st...rona-i-danmark

Copenhagen area offices seem back to being busy with office workers again -- actually more busy than what I am seeing in comparable office areas around Sweden. Once the genie is out of the bottle/home, it's not all that easy to put the worker genies back in the bottle.

I can well imagine that Mette F feels solidified by the upcoming full FDA approval of Pfizer.

The Danish Prime Minister is encouraging the younger generation to get vaccinated, given they are half of the hospitalized.

Mette Frederiksen med direkte opfordring til borgere under 40 år
Statsministeren holder pressemøde om covid-19-situationen. Vaccineslutspurten er i fuld gang. Men trods høj national tilslutning halter unge stadig efter. Få nu jeres stik, lød opfordringen fra Mette Frederiksen.
https://politiken.dk/forbrugogliv/su...re-under-40-år

Meanwhile,

Pfizer's COVID Vaccine Gets Full Approval From The FDA
https://www.npr.org/sections/coronav...e-fda-approval

Denmark has already approved a third vaccine shot for some too?

The Danish health ministry is saying that "everyone" in Denmark will have a 3rd Covid-19 vaccine dose at some point. I guess that means more people may eventually have to figure out when and where to get a third vaccine shot.

"Denmark will on September 10th stop classifying Covid-19 as an "illness which is a critical threat to society", meaning all remaining special pandemic restrictions will expire.

In a press release issued on Friday morning, the country’s health minister Magnus Heunicke said that the high level of vaccination in Denmark, particularly among the vulnerable, had radically altered the risks posed by the virus.”

"A number of restrictions are set to lapse on September 1st, notably the requirement to show a valid coronapas to sit in restaurants and bars, and the ban on discos and nightclubs.

Friday’s announcement means that just ten days after nightclubs reopen on September 1st, visitors will no longer have to show a coronapas, and it also means that from September 10th, those going to watch a Superliga football match or attend an outdoor event with more than 2,000 people, will no longer need a coronapas.

The change in the classification of Covid-19 will not, however, affect rules on travel into Denmark, which are governed by a separate inter-party agreement which is due to expire in October, a spokesperson for the health ministry said.“

Denmark to scrap ALL Covid-19 restrictions
https://www.thelocal.dk/20210827/den...ns-next-month/

"Den nuværende kategorisering af covid-19 som en samfundskritisk sygdom ophører den 10. september 2021. Regeringen har besluttet ikke at forlænge denne kategorisering. Det skyldes dels den store vaccinationstilslutning, dels den stærke epidemikontrol.”

Regeringen vil ikke forlænge kategorisering af covid-19 som en samfundskritisk sygdom i Danmark
https://sum.dk/nyheder/2021/august/r...kritisk-sygdom

What I find interesting is that they simultaneously claim that the covid is no longer a critical threat, yet continue to restrict freedom of movement under European legislation. I would like to hear arguments for this.

Anyway, it is definitely a huge step in the right direction and Denmark is now set to become one of few places in Europe that are worth visiting in the upcoming months.

No, not quite so. The parties on the right half of the political spectrum have for some time critized categorizing Covid as a socially critical illness, and between that and the general population being worn out from pandemic fatigue, the prime minister realized that politically at this point it was too steep an uphill battle not to play along and get the best of it.

Yep. Normal traffic is back.

Mr's employer said everyone need to come back to work physically. Why can't people work from home if they want to? Working from home reduces CO2 emission due to not needing to commute to and from work and it's good for the environment and less traffic on the road.

I'm curious to see how sustainable the Danish "reopening" and still-expanding "reopening" turns out to be. While it helps that Denmark has a higher proportion of its population vaccinated than Sweden, I suspect that Denmark's pediatric and young adult hospitalization scene ahead this year (and maybe even next) is also going to be worse in some ways than it was at the comparable time of year in 2020. And those Danes with weakened immune systems -- including those who are well below traditional retirement age -- are at greater risk of finding out how much worse the Delta/Indian variant of this virus is than was the case with this virus in earlier waves.

What's interesting to me is how various Danish employers seem to be getting even their Sweden-residing employees back into the Danish offices at a much higher frequency now than was the case even pre-pandemic. People that used to seem to show up to the Danish offices only once or twice a week pre-pandemic are now in them at least 3-4 days a week. Face-time in the office may be one way for them to try to minimize ending up out of work or sidelined for promotions/opportunities and facing the Swedish employment scene (which is substantially weaker than the Danish employment scene). It's said partly in sad jest that the Swedish youth unemployment scene is more akin to Italy than to Denmark. Those younger workers especially have even more reason to put in time into the offices, even when it should not really be necessary to perform the actual work required for the job in Denmark.

If a Swedish resident works in Denmark, he/she will be very likely to be vaccinated. To get them to the office is simple: tell them to show up and if they don't they will face consequences. At Mr.'s workplace if one works from home frequently on Mondays and Fridays they will be flagged, so are those who WFH all the time. When Mr was living in Sweden and work in DK, basically he follows what his employer's instructions.

Mr said over 80% of 12-15 years old in DK are fully vaccinated and I think this helps to reduce the number of ICU patients, and it would be faster for everyone to get a third dose in DK vs SE since most of us have had 2 jabs already.

In DK there's a law that all 15-18 years old must either be studying or working. I found out after receiving a letter from my municipality asking what my child is doing and that I have to attach some sort of proof.

Mask usage is still in place at my GP which is situated in an elderly home.

It should be interesting to see if the American in our household will be allowed to enter Denmark in September. At least the northern region isn’t as tourist-hungry as southern Europe.

E.U. Set to Propose Travel Restrictions on U.S. Visitors
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/29/w...trictions.html

EU to recommend reinstating restrictions on US travelers
https://apnews.com/article/lifestyle...63d6d8d4ed844c

https://en.coronasmitte.dk/rules-and...esident-abroad

Close relatives to an EU citizen should be able to enter the EU in the same way as EU citizens, at least when travelling together. Try to find the rules for this.

The Oresund bridge is having a promotion for Bropass users whereby each paid crossing by car may come with a free crossing by car. Sort of like a buy one get one free promo during the period.

They are trying to stimulate automobile traffic across the bridge because the pandemic has really hammered crossing volumes in both directions.

https://www.oresundsbron.com/sv/info/omstart