COPENHAGEN (BLOOMBERG) - Denmark's government is taking the drastic step of closing down all state schools and telling workers to stay at home, while Norway is shutting its borders to places worst hit by the coronavirus. In Sweden, the first fatality has prompted the government to warn of even tougher measures ahead.

"We're in uncharted territory here," Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said at an emergency press briefing convened late on Wednesday (March 11). "We've never tried anything like this before."

The Danish government is telling all citizens to do what they can to isolate themselves to prevent the virus from bringing down the country's healthcare system. State schools will remain shut for two weeks from Monday, but pupils have been instructed to stay home from Thursday.

The decree came not long after the World Health Organisation declared the coronavirus outbreak to be a pandemic, and urged governments to step up their efforts to fight the contagion. The number of cases across the Nordic region jumped sharply on Wednesday, with Norway, Sweden and Denmark together now having registered about 1,500 people with the virus.

"All private-sector employers are encouraged to ensure that as many employees as possible are able to work from home," Ms Frederiksen said. "We need to limit activity in society as much as possible, without letting our society grind to a halt."

All state-sector employees are being forced to stay home, though emergency personnel will continue to perform their duties, she said.

Sweden and Norway have banned public gatherings of more than 500 people, while in Denmark groups of more than 100 people are now being discouraged. The decree has hit corporate annual general meetings, with the country's biggest lender, Danske Bank, announcing it doesn't want shareholders to attend its March 17 AGM.

To help companies cope with the fallout of the virus, Denmark has agreed to about US$20 billion (S$28 billion) in tax breaks. In Sweden, the government of Prime Minister Stefan Lofven is exploring an increasing palette of stimulus measures to shield exporters from any damage the virus causes to trade.

In Norway, the authorities said on Wednesday they now expect a "relatively sharp increase" in the number of cases, after registering a 77 per cent spike to 489 people infected with the virus.

"We expect more hospitalisation in the days and weeks ahead, and also gradually a higher number of intensive-care patients," the Norwegian Institute of Public Health's Director General Camilla Stoltenberg said at a press conference.

"We must also expect deaths in the time ahead."