Danish Consumers Turn Pessimistic as Virus Restrictions Return

(Bloomberg) -- Denmark’s consumers turned pessimistic for the first time in seven months in November after the Nordic country re-introduced some restrictions to fight a rise in Covid-19 infections.

The consumer confidence index fell to minus 2 from plus 3.3 a month earlier, the first negative reading since April, Statistics Denmark said on Monday. 

“The risk of more restrictions is greater than it has been for many months and that is ruining sentiment,” Asbjorn Klein, a senior analyst at Nykredit, said in a note. “At the same time, rising inflation means that Danes have to spend more money every time they consume.” 

Daily infections are up by a factor of about 10 since the country, which has been among the most resilient to the pandemic, ended restrictions in September. 

From this month, Danes are again required to provide corona passports to attend some public events and the government has also said that it may require state workers to display the ID, which verifies that a person is either vaccinated, has tested negative or has recently recovered from the disease.

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