One employee is believed to have infected at least four others in a day care facility in Frederiksberg municipality.
Five employees in an integrated institution in Frederiksberg Municipality have tested positive with coronavirus.
This confirms Janni Hjerpe, a child and youth doctor and advisor to the municipality’s day care centers.
According to her, there is probably one employee who has taken the infection into the children’s home Solmarken, which accommodates 95 children in the crèche and kindergarten.
The person was at work when he became ill, but has managed to infect more people, says Janni Hjerpe.
A further four employees subsequently became ill, sent home from work and tested positive for coronavirus.
All 27 staff in the institution were tested after the first case of Covid-19.
However, the head of the Children’s Home Solar Market Karin Meyer is relieved that the virus did not spread further.
We are in the middle of a pandemic, and this could happen. And it’s really nice that the other 22 of us have tested negative and that it has not spread, says Karin Meyer.
Children were not tested
The first sick employee was tested on Friday, May 1st. On Sunday, a positive response returned, which is why the municipality was considering keeping the institution closed on Monday.
But, explains doctor Janni Hjerpe, it was not part of the recommendations of the Danish Agency for Patient Safety to close.
Therefore, the institution was open and four other employees were subsequently tested positive – all four had symptoms.
However, no children have been tested since it was not at that time the guidelines of the National Board of Health that close contacts should be tested or isolated.
Still, about half of the children who signed up for care stayed home.
– Based on the new guidelines , it was possible to discuss whether the children should be tested, says Janni Hjerpe, who has had close contact with the institution throughout the course.
She points out that yesterday, new guidelines came from the National Board of Health on contact tracking.
The guidelines mean that anyone who can be described as close contacts to an infected person is offered to be tested twice. In addition, close contacts are encouraged to isolate themselves for a week.
However, several parents took the matter into their own hands and have even contacted their own doctor to have their children tested, explains Karin Meyer, head of the solar field.
– And I haven’t heard of any children or parents who have tested positive, she says.
Educator: It came close
Pernille Hjorhøj is an educator in the children’s home Solmarken and has been tested negative twice.
– It comes really, really close, and of course you are a little nervous. I think we all were, she says.
She is happy that the case was taken care of quickly, but it was precisely the uncertainty about the children that filled especially the Monday after the first positive test came.
– We do not know how many people were affected. And are there children who are healthy carriers? That uncertainty was there on Monday, says Pernille Hjorhøj.
Director: Can only lean on guidelines
Acting Director of Children and Young People in Frederiksberg Municipality, Dennis Danielsen, points out that they have followed both advice and guidelines from the authorities – even when they chose not to test the children.
