Erik Strand, 07.07.2023
In an article published on 29.01.2021 in the Danish newspaper Berlingske Tidende (BT), journalist Jacob Friberg and political editor Anders Leonhard scrutinize some claims from Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Fredriksen. The claims were about the background for the decision to implement lockdown as a covid 19 measure in Denmark in 2020.
The article starts by reminding its Danish audience that Mette Fredriksen has repeatedly stated that there was a ‘broad group of public authorities’ (“bred myndighetsgruppe”) that recommended lockdown in Denmark on March 11, 2020.
The journalists conclude that contrary to what Fredriksen has claimed, the plans for lockdown seem to have been planned nowhere else than in the PMs own administration. They refer to a then newly published 595 pages long report on the government’s handling of the covid 19 situation. This report had newly been released to the Danish parliament. The conclusions led the opposition party Venstre to accuse Fredriksen of lying and misleading the Danish population.
The article mentions that there had been a debate on whether the PM told the truth at the press conference on 11.03.2020, when lockdown was imposed in Denmark. At this press conference, the PM said:
“Therefore, it is the authorities’ recommendation that we close down all unnecessary activity in those areas for a period”.
The journalists mention that it was impossible for other parties to get a direct answer regarding which authorities had recommended lockdown. This is the reason why the majority in the parliament in June 2020 chose to appoint an expert group led by professor emeritus Jørgen Grønnegård Christensen to scrutinize the backround for the lockdown politics, including which authorities had recommended lockdown.
After going through a lot of material – notes, emails, protocols – the expert group was unable to find any public authority that could have recommended lockdown, save the PM’s office itself. In its report, the expert group states that the material “does not support the wording used by the Prime Minister at the press conference on 11 March 2020”.
At a hearing following the release of the report, Jørgen Grønnegård Christensen was asked to elaborate on the findings of the expert group. On the statements given by the PM at the aforementioned press conference, he said:
“The way in which the Prime Minister communicates does not reflect the actual situation.”
Going through the relevant authorities that one could expect to have recommended locdown, Christensen concluded that it was excluded or unlikely that it was these authorities that had recommended lockdown. One was then left with one possibility – the PM’s office:
“In combination with the close management and control of covid-19 management exercised by the Prime Minister’s Office from February 27, the absence of alternative sources for the shutdown plan suggests that the shutdown plan announced at the press conference in the Prime Minister’s Office on March 11, is essentially conceived in the Prime Minister’s Office.”
The expert group also point at the fact that central civil servants wanted to wait before imposing covid 19 measures:
“It is also the investigation group’s impression that right up until 10 and 11 March, it is still considered an option in the government and among the central officials to wait to implement the new measures and restrictions.”
One civil servant who opposed lockdown, was Søren Brostrøm, director of Sundhedsstyrelsen (Health Directorate). Seven hours before the press conference on 11.03.2020, he wrote the following in an e-mail to the PM:
“We cannot recommend such a measure for health reasons in the current situation”.
According to the expert group’s report, Barbara Bertelsen the PM’s office’s Head of Department, was very active in describing the situation as grave. The article mentions that she sends a lot of mails to the other heads of departments before the lockdown decision. From the expert group’s report:
“The e-mail gives an insight into how she and thus per presumption The Prime Minister’s Office perceives the covid-19 situation at this time,”
The article also present further details on the messages furthered from Barbara Bertelsen the days befor the lockdown decision, as well as presenting Søren Brostrøm’s entire e-mail.
Fampo 