Denmark will close schools, curtail nightlife and urge citizens to work from home to try to stem surging coronavirus cases, Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said Wednesday.

Schoolchildren in Denmark will be sent home on Dec. 15 due to persistently high numbers of new infections, meaning that the Christmas holiday will begin early.

For pupils from preschool to 10th grade, this means "extended Christmas holidays," Frederiksen said at a press conference in Copenhagen.

In addition, dance clubs and similar nightlife establishments will have to close as early as Friday. Concerts with more than 50 standing guests indoors will also be prohibited from then on.

Even if restrictions are introduced, it is not a lockdown, Frederiksen emphasized. She continues to believe that it is possible to keep large parts of society open.

The Danish government is encouraging people to work from home and also to cancel Christmas parties.

In Denmark, the last remaining pandemic containment measures were lifted in September, with Germany's northern neighbor recorded a rapid increase in the number of new infections in autumn.

Most recently, cases had risen to record levels of more than 6,000 new infections per day. In addition, 577 cases of the omicron variant of the coronavirus have been registered so far in the country of 5 million inhabitants.

This number is rising sharply every day and includes 107 cases confirmed by whole genome sequencing and 470 detected by variant PCR testing.