The news was certainly appreciated when we learned that Denmark was ending all COVID-19 restrictions:

Denmark has lifted all Covid-19 restrictions within the country, with coronavirus no longer considered a “socially critical sickness,” according to the government.

This means that an indoor mask mandate, the use of a “Covid pass” for bars, restaurants and other indoor venues, and the legal obligation to self-isolate if you test positive are all ending.

“No one can know what will happen next December. But we promised the citizens of Denmark that we will only have restrictions if they are truly necessary and we’ll lift them as soon as we can,” Danish Health Minister Magnus Heunicke told CNN on Monday. “That’s what’s happening right now.”

Denmark is the first country in the European Union to lift all restrictions. The move comes at a time when it has the second-highest infection rate, or seven-day average of new infections, of any nation in the world, according to Our World in Data.

There’s more at the original.

Denmark does have a high vaccination rate, 81% being “fully vaccinated,” though the story does not specify what percentage have received the booster. Denmark has no vaccine mandate.

Sadly, here in the United States, supposedly the beacon of freedom in the world, we have too many petit dictators who just love them some authoritarian controls. From The Philadelphia Inquirer:

Lifting COVID-19 mandates likely still ‘several months away’ in Philadelphia as omicron recedes

“Our team is actively discussing what an off-ramp looks like,” the city health commissioner said.

by Justine McDaniel and Erin McCarthy | Groundhog Day, February 2, 2022

Philadelphia is likely “several months” away from being able to drop its current pandemic restrictions, even as the omicron surge wanes, Health Commissioner Cheryl Bettigole said Wednesday.

City officials hope to drop the indoor mask mandate eventually, but it’s too early to do so now, Bettigole said at a virtual briefing Wednesday, citing much-improved but still-high case and hospitalization numbers.

However, officials have begun discussing plans for easing restrictions and providing guidance to residents once the pandemic relents. The city will also consider when to eliminate the vaccine mandate for indoor dining at restaurants, which Bettigole said would not be permanent.

At this point in writing an article, I would normally consider adding an illustration, the photo of Cheryl Bettigole, Philadelphia’s Health Commissioner. In previous articles, I used the photo from Dr Bettigole’s Twitter account, but, alas! she went ahead and deleted it. I wonder if perhaps, just perhaps, she was getting too many people calling her a petit dictator. When I found another photo, it let me know one thing: the one she used in her now-defunct Twitter account was definitely a much younger, glammed up photo!

“Our team is actively discussing what an off-ramp looks like,” Bettigole said when asked about easing restrictions. “If you think about where we are with this particular wave and case rates right now, we’re probably several months away from a place where we will have the kind of safety to drop all the current restrictions.”

With the surge rapidly declining but transmission levels still categorized as high, public health officials nationwide are urging continued caution for now — while saying optimism is warranted as the spring looks likely to bring at least a period of relief.

A period of relief? What they are saying is simple: at least for the Xi Omicron variant, COVID-19 is a seasonal disease, like influenza.

In New Jersey, the rate of COVID-19 transmission is the lowest it has been in several weeks, Gov. Phil Murphy said.

“Trends that we are seeing across literally all metrics continue to suggest the omicron tsunami, as fast as it washed in, is washing out at nearly the same speed,” the governor said. Still, “we have to remain on a vigilant footing.”

The average daily new case count has dropped 70% in New Jersey and 57% in Pennsylvania over the last two weeks, according to federal data analyzed by the New York Times. Still, more than 10,000 new cases are being reported each day in Pennsylvania and more than 5,000 in New Jersey.

Vaccinations remain slow, for a simple reason: the people who wanted to take the vaccines had already done so, and the people who resisted have mostly still resisted; only dictatorial action, mandating vaccination, with the cost of non-compliance being job loss or being unable to participate in society, has pushed some of the reluctant to take the vaccines.^[1]Yes, I am fully vaccinated, and boostered, but that was my choice, and I absolutely refuse to carry my vaccination card with me, to yield to the officious little pricks demanding, “Papiere, … Continue reading And we already know: the vaccines do not stop the spread of the Omicron variant, and they do not reduce the transmissibility of Omicron from vaccinated people. More, the face masks most people use just don’t stop Omicron, and the so-called experts recommend a N-95 mask.

Of course, many, and perhaps even most, men now wear beards, and the Centers for Disease Control issued a chart for which facial hair styles will and will not allow an N-95 mask to properly seal! I shall admit to previous ignorance of the names attached to various styles of beards.

With my full beard, an N-95 would not work for me, so I have to ask: would Dr Bettigole and the rest of the tinpot dictators in the City of Brotherly Love try to require men to shave off their beards to wear properly the recommended N-95 mask? That would seem silly, but I put nothing beyond these drunk-with-power bureaucrats.

Fortunately, I no longer live in the Keystone State, but I am constantly amazed at the number of people yielding to dictatorship, who give up some of their essential liberty to purchase a bit of temporary safety.