Toddlers and schoolchildren resume school in Europe as parents and schoolchildren wait outside to get inside a school near Copenhagen on Wednesday. Photo Credit: nytimes.com

Toddlers and schoolchildren return to school in Denmark, Europe

Italy also reopened some bookshops and stores for children’s clothing

Spain allowed factory and construction workers to return to work

Finland was set to reopen national borders

Toddlers in daycare and schoolchildren in primary schools return to school in Denmark, Europe on Wednesday, marking their first day in school as Denmark government started to relax strict restrictions on movement imposed as part of the lockdown measures to avoid coronavirus pandemic.

You can also read: Schools to remain closed until the next academic year.

The Denmark government was one of a few European countries whose government has gradually but cautiously started to lift strict restrictions on daily economic activities this week for the first time this week since coronavirus pandemic began, more pronouncedly early this year.

Allowing toddlers and schoolchildren to resume schools by the Danish government provides a test if many other European and other western countries can carefully restart their normal their economic lives and restore basic rightful freedoms without reviving the second wave of the coronavirus outbreak.

The Denmark government was able to allow toddlers and schoolchildren to return to school because meaning that the number of hospital admissions for coronavirus disease treatment continued far below capacity across the country.

By Tuesday, in Denmark, about 380 coronavirus patients were being treated in Danish hospitals down from 535 at the peak of the outbreak in the country on April 1.

Denmark Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said at a news briefing on Tuesday that the coronavirus pandemic was better than they dare hoped for, claiming that the Danish government has saved lives by the coronavirus pandemic prevention measures taken and that she hoped to return Denmark to the “rich and secure” society it was before the COVID-19 outbreak.

 Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen had faced some criticism both for the drastic enforcement of strict restrictions on March 11 when she closed borders and schools, shut down most of the public sector and asked the private sector to work from home.

Italy, the epicenter of Europe’s COVID-19 pandemic, also reopened some bookshops and stores for children’s clothing on Tuesday. Spain allowed factory and construction workers to return to work; even though the daily death toll remains over 500. Finland was set to reopen the borders of the southern region borders of Uusimaa, on Wednesday which includes Helsinki, the capital. The area has been sealed off from the rest of the country since March 28.