St. Gallen is now even worse in terms of crown numbers: what is the government doing?

There is less evidence in St. Gallen than in other cantons.

Image: Eveline Beekircher

The government of St. Gallen will meet tomorrow and will communicate its resolutions on Wednesday. Will it decide on long-range corona measures similar to what other cantons have already done? Or is it maintaining its liberal course, which relies on the most moderate interventions possible?

One thing is clear: the St. Gallen government is under pressure, especially due to current figures, which have deteriorated again over the weekend compared to the rest of Switzerland. With currently 844 corona cases per 100,000 inhabitants in the last two weeks, the canton has by far the highest value of all the German-speaking cantons. For comparison: in Thurgau, which communicated new measures on Monday, there are 640 cases, in Zurich 617, in Aargau 633.

The number of unreported cases is likely to be higher

If we look at the development of the last days, it should only be a few days before St. Gallen surpasses Ticino (866) in terms of the number of cases. Southern Switzerland is currently the area of ​​Switzerland most affected by Corona.

This development isn’t exactly encouraging in terms of the test numbers, either. For every 100,000 inhabitants in St. Gallen, up to 20 percent fewer people take the Corona test than in other areas of Switzerland. With 3,623 tests per 100,000 inhabitants, the canton is exactly within the Swiss average, despite the high number of cases.

This means that the number of unreported corona cases is likely to be even higher in the canton of St. Gallen. This is also indicated by the positivity rate, which in St. Gallen is still a record 25.6 percent (PCR testing).

Not surprisingly, the R-value in St. Gallen is 1.16 based on ETH’s latest estimate, one of the highest in the country. That means 100 people infected with corona infect 116 people in the area. If this number cannot be reduced soon, the number of cases will not only increase moderately as in recent days, but will soon increase exponentially again. For many experts, the R-value is the decisive basis for evaluating how far Corona measures should go.

The death toll is also worrying

The number of hospitalizations in the last two weeks in the canton of St. Gallen is well above the Swiss average, but not as high as might be expected based on the number of cases. In Ticino, which is also severely affected, there are more than twice as many corona patients for every 100,000 inhabitants in hospital care.

It looks different with the death rate. Throughout the year, around twice as many people per 100,000 inhabitants fell victim to the virus in the severely affected western Swiss cantons of Geneva (116) and Wallis (112) and also in Ticino (139) than in St. Gallen. (56). In no other canton of Switzerland, medium or large, are there as many people dying of Corona as in St. Gallen.

Currently, the figure is 17 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants in the last two weeks. Only in the small cantons of Nidwalden, Obwalden and Uri are the numbers even higher. However, due to the small population, individual crown outbreaks there, for example, in nursing homes and for the elderly, cause large statistical fluctuations.

This negative trend persists in St. Gallen for more than a month. When this development began to emerge four weeks ago, the canton was still in decline. The data situation for comparisons and conclusions with the high death toll in St. Gallen was simply too small, it was said at the time.

Pietro Vernazza, Head of Infectious Diseases at St. Gallen Cantonal Hospital and advisor to Government Councilor Bruno Damann, also said: “This is just a snapshot in time. In principle, the numbers are subject to large regional fluctuations. “Coincidence and statistical fluctuations alone are unlikely to justify St. Gallen’s relatively high death rate per crown.