The Danish Health Authority has from the start of the coronavirus pandemic advised the general public against wearing face masks in public, arguing both that the benefits are unproven, and that doing so risks making it more difficult for health authorities to source supplies."

The Danish Health Authority does not recommend that healthy people who move around in public generally wear face masks," the authority explains. "This is partly because it is uncertain whether it has an effect on the spread of infection, but also because we must ensure that we will not lack face masks where they are most important, in the health and care sector."

However, the Authority has over the past week changed this advice to remove a section claiming that "nothing suggests" that the masks have an effect on transmission of the virus when worn by the general public.

Henning Bundgaard, Professor in Cardiology at Copenhagen University, who is conducting a trial on the efficacy of face masks, told The Local that he believed Denmark was right to exercise caution. "No one has any documentation that face masks outside hospitals work at all," he said. "And I think it is rational to provide this documentation before we demand that people need to wear masks out in the open."