Mink, here on a farm in Denmark.

(illustration) -

Mads Claus Rasmussen / AP / SIPA

Denmark, the world's leading exporter of mink, adopted a law on Monday banning their breeding until January 1, 2022. This text thus provides a legal basis for its decision to slaughter its entire herd of more than 15 million. beasts to fight against Covid-19.

The text, adopted by a majority vote in Parliament, specifies that in the event of non-compliance with the ban, the mink must be euthanized.

“Danish mink farmers sacrificed their life's work for the common good.

We owe them a big thank you, ”Agriculture Minister Rasmus Prehn said on Twitter, recalling the compensation mechanisms in place.

De danske minkavlere har ofret deres livsværk for det fælles bedste.

Vi skylder dem en stor tak.

Dermed er det meget glædeligt, at L77 nu er vedtaget, så der kan komme klarhed om bonusser og erstatninger!

#dkpol pic.twitter.com/XBPfSjgyHi

- Rasmus Prehn (@RasmusPrehn) December 21, 2020

Millions of mink slaughtered

At the beginning of November, Denmark had urgently ordered the slaughter of all mink from the more than 1,000 farms in the Scandinavian kingdom, because of a mutation of the coronavirus which could, according to preliminary studies, threaten the effectiveness of the future vaccine for humans.

Most of the mink have since been slaughtered, but the government of Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen had to admit a few days later that it had no legal basis to force the slaughter of healthy animals located outside the epidemic centers.

The Minister of Agriculture had resigned and Mette Frederiksen apologized for the management of the crisis, teary eyed.

As for the problematic mutation at the origin of the slaughter, Denmark declared it extinct on November 19, for lack of new cases detected and after drastic measures in the concerned region of North Jutland, in the north-west of the country.

If the health alert, which had caused concern, was lifted, the file continues to poison the Danish executive.

Soon to be unearthed before being cremated

This Sunday, the Ministry of Agriculture announced that four million mink corpses, urgently buried in mass graves in two military fields, would have to be unearthed next year.

A political agreement has been reached to take them out of the earth in six months, when all health risks have been ruled out, before incinerating them.

The case will continue, a political agreement having been reached on Monday to appoint a parliamentary commission of inquiry into the management of the crisis, according to Danish media.

As a symbol of the difficulty in solving the problem, mink hastily buried in these mass graves had also begun to rise to the surface at the end of November under the effect of decomposition gases, requiring them to be buried again.

The mink is the only animal identified to date as being able to both contract Covid-19 and recontaminate humans.

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