• COVID-19
• Publicationsclose
• Research softwareclose
• Other research productsclose
• 2013-2022close
• DK close
• Danish close
• Copenhagen University Research Information System close
• COVID-19 close

lle danskere over 50 år og særligt sårbare kan per 1. oktober få et boosterstik med coronavaccinen. Det er et led i Sundhedsstyrelsens nye vaccinationsplan for efteråret, som jeg skrev om forleden.Men hvilke vacciner bliver vi vaccineret med? Er de tilpasset, så de dækker de seneste mutationer af coronavirussen? Hvordan får vaccineproducenterne en ny vaccine godkendt? Og ikke mindst – hvor tit skal vi vaccineres mod COVID-19?Jeg er professor i vaccinedesign og vil efter bedste evne forsøge at besvare disse spørgsmål i denne artikel.

Er du over 50 år eller særligt sårbar, kan du få en booster-vaccination mod COVID-19 1. oktober. Er du over 85 år eller plejehjemsbeboer, kan du få stikket her allerede fra 15. september.

International research points to an increase in mental-health problems related to the COVID-19 pandemic, especially among people aged 65+ living with chronic illness. This is cause for concern, as mental-health problems are already widespread in this population group and can exacerbate chronic conditions. In this article, we shed light on how the first phase of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 affected the mental health of older people with chronic illness in Denmark. We emphasize the importance of psychological support and regular contact with the health sector, as this can reduce the psychological burden associated with the pandemic. In preparation for a future pandemic or other crisis, we call for a national strategy that can promote the mental health of older people with chronic illness.

Der er en løbende debat for og imod vaccination af børn. Her præsenteres den viden, der findes lige nu.

This article examines the disease motif in Lu Xun’s “Diary of a Madman” (1918) and in Ding Ling’s “Miss Sophia’s Diary” (1928) in their historical and medical contexts. At its most fundamental, the contemporaneous Chinese conception of health was thermodynamic, vesting the utmost importance in the circulation of energies and substances. This conception had immense social importance because it provided part of the ideological scaffolding for the family structure. Inside the family, established responsibilities and hierarchies purportedly served to guide this circulation in ways supportive of health, and the same considerations charged family members with maintaining strict scrutiny of the family’s barriers against any potentially illness-inducing influences that might penetrate the family fortress. Written at a time when political, social, and scientific verities were crumbling in China, these diaries record the foibles and concerns of two diseased individuals who stand alienated from their families and their immediate surroundings. By focusing on this alienation, as well as on the shared interests of the diarists in boundary crossing flows and anthropophagy, this article suggests that these short stories can profitably be read as explorations of the anxieties facing this generation of young Chinese as they sought to make a world for themselves independently of their families. What these stories dramatize is that leaving the family behind might have medical ramifications in addition to social and financial costs. In the current covid-19 context, we may not need reminding that ideas about disease and health relate in important ways to how we think of the relationship between families, boundaries, and vulnerability. 

The population of Denmark had no former expericence with pandemics, meaning that its evaluation of risk and the necessary measures against contagnation were dependent on the dissemination of information through the media. This article uses a media-centric prism to discuss the themes found throughout this special issue, arguing that the Government's use of the media as well as the media's support of rapidly evolving government policies had a decisive impact on the population's response. This argument is supported by a thematically organized discussion of events between 11 March until the early part of October 2020. The themes are the horror raised by the pandemic, the ethical considerations regarding easy and equal access to the health services, unemployment, global warming and, not the least, religion as seen in relation to COVID-19. This last theme is considered in relation to whether the pandemic could be a punishment decided by God or perhaps a personified Nature's revenge due to humans' ill-tratment. The meaning of the prohibition on public rituals and the application of private rituals are considered at last.

In this article, we present the historical and theoretical context informing the investigation into how the COVID-19 pandemic has influenced religiosity in Denmark. We have chosen four foci, each of which contributes to the formation of a historical and theoretical context. First, we embed representations of death within a broad horizon informed by history of religion and cultural history. Beginning with early Christianity's ascent in a cult of the dead and, later, a cult of saints, to the change from burials inside the church to graveyards, we track the coinciding weakening of representations of the afterlife in the modern era. This naturally leads to a discussion of two prior cases in which an epidemic has elicited reactions from Evangelical-Lutheran Church in Denmark: The Cholera epidemic of 1853 and the Spanish Flu in 1918-20. Then we expand our line of inquiry to a more general discussion of how major theories in the Study of Religion have modelled the relation between religion, death and suffering. Following a short introduction to how the human consciousness of death has been conceived as a major causal factor in both the emergence and maintenance of religious beliefs and institutions by major theoreticians of religion, we discuss a number of more recent psychological and sociological theories, that have informed the theoretical foundation of our investigation. In order to capture the praxis dimension of religion, we shortly discuss the particular role of ritual, before, finally presenting the 16 research questions that informed the construction of our survey.