On 11 April, there was no active cases of coronavirus recorded in Greenland, an autonomous territory under the Danish crown which Donald Trump had hoped to acquire. Eleven people who had previously tested positive for coronavirus have since recovered and no new cases of COVID-19 have been reported on the territory so far, according to the national medical office in Denmark, as cited by Inquisitr. However, some test results are still reportedly pending in the island, which is home to approximately 57,000 people.
According to an earlier report by EUobserver, all the previous cases of coronavirus have been recorded in Greenland’s capital, Nuuk, which has been closed for some time now for people to enter or leave without a special permit. The island has imposed strict travel restrictions around the territory, with some movement only allowed between small cities and villages.
“On Friday it will be two weeks that we have been careful and still nobody here shows any signs of illness. If nobody is infected, I think it will be sensible to allow a more relaxed way of being together here in Saattut, but I don't know what the plan is. Perhaps they will relax the rules after Easter,” Apollo Mathiassen, a local fisherman from Saattut village, told EUobserver.
Meanwhile, more than 6,000 cases of infection have been recorded in the Kingdom of Denmark, according to the data provided by Johns Hopkins University on 11 April, and 247 citizens have died from COVID-19 so far. Greenland had long retained a colonial status within Denmark, but in 1979 it was granted self-rule over its internal affairs, with Copenhagen preserving responsibility over the island’s foreign and military affairs, as well as constitutional issues.
Greenland caught the eye of US president Donald Trump, who thought it might make a great addition to the US. Last August, a number of media reports suggested that Trump was mulling the possibility of buying the world’s largest island. The president later confirmed that he had a “strategic” interest in Greenland’s acquisition, but did not find the issue pressing at that time.