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Students of the cantonal school of Lucerne. In some cantons it is mandatory to wear a mask in schools. Image: keystone
8 points about the current situation in Switzerland in the crown crisis
The crown crisis has dominated our lives for months. The number of cases has continually increased in recent weeks. But by themselves they do not give a picture of the situation.
Number of cases, volume of tests, positivity rate, hospitalizations, deaths: there are some statistics that together give a picture of the corona crisis. Stefan Kuster, Head of the Department of Communicable Diseases at FOPH, said at today’s press conference: “The situation is stable, but fragile.” We observe eight points.
>> Coronavirus: All the news in the live ticker
Case numbers
After the peak in March / April, Switzerland reduced the number of cases to the low double-digit range. However, they have been increasing continuously since the end of June. We are currently in around 400 to 500 cases daily.
An interesting side effect: on what day of the week are the most cases reported? Or to put it another way: generally Monday is the day with the fewest new cases, Tuesday the day with the second fewest. Overall, however, the reports have also increased these days.
How many cases of corona are reported on what day of the week
Development since March 6, 2020. image: watson
Situation in the cantons
As of September 10, four cantons currently have more than 60 cases per 100,000 inhabitants in the last 14 days. They are:
- Waadt: 159 cases per 100,000 in the last 14 days
- Geneva: 130 cases
- Freiburg: 123 cases
- Zurich: 61 cases
You can see the overview of all cantons here:
Cases per 100,000 inhabitants in the last 14 days
Data as of September 8. which: BAG
How to fight the coronavirus in Geneva, Zurich and Vaud:
Positivitätsrate
However, the number of cases alone does not give an idea of the current situation. Several factors play a role. For example, the number of tests and the positivity rate.
The number of tests also varies depending on the day of the week. During the weekend, significantly fewer people can typically be tested. In general, the number has increased again since the end of August.
The positivity rate, on the other hand, has fallen from around 4 percent in late August to around 3 percent today. The higher number of cases in recent days can also be attributed to the higher number of tests.
Hospitalization
One of the biggest issues in recent weeks has been hospitalizations. Although the number of cases is constantly increasing, hospitalizations remain relatively constant, which is also the goal of the FOPH. On average over the past seven days, the number of new hospitalizations has fluctuated between 6 and 8 per day:
Swiss hospitals had to treat more than 2,000 corona patients in late March / early April. We experienced the lowest level of people hospitalized due to Covid-19 after the peak in the spring at the end of June, when fewer than 100 people with Corona were in a Swiss hospital.
The number rose to around 140 cases in early August, but fell back to around 110 and shows no increasing trend.
The intensive care unit
Beds in the intensive care unit are also significantly less occupied by corona patients than in the peak of spring, when more than 400 Covid-19 patients were briefly in the intensive care unit.
Here too the picture is similar to that of hospitalizations: at the beginning of August the number of cases rose again to around 25, currently we are just over 10 patients in the intensive care unit.
Deceased
Fortunately, deaths have also been low for weeks. We are a long way from the more than 60 daily deaths in early April. At the moment, most of the time 0-3 deaths are reported to the FOPH every day.
As long as hospitalizations and patients in intensive care units remain low, deaths should not increase significantly.
Age distribution
The low number of hospitalizations and deaths is due to young people, in particular, becoming infected with the coronavirus, according to experts. In fact, the U50 age group has always accounted for more than 60% of new infections in recent weeks.
The relocation from the young to the old, feared for weeks, has not really happened. However, there has been a slight trend in this direction for the past two weeks. The proportion of people over 60 years of age rose from 7.3 percent in mid-August to 11.6 percent in the last seven days. The largest increase in new infections recently occurred among people ages 50 to 59.
Age distribution of new infections in weekly average:
quarantine
Since the beginning of July, the FOPH has also reported those who are in isolation or quarantine due to contact tracing or who are returning from a country at risk.
Here we show the respective 7-day average. It should be noted that the FOPH does not receive reports from all the cantons every day. That is why intermediate information can be deeper than it really is.
Number of people in isolation in an average of 7 days
Practically in parallel with people in isolation, the number of contacts in quarantine also develops.
Number of contacts of people in contact tracking quarantine in an average of 7 days
The effects of summer holidays can be seen in people who had to be quarantined after returning from a country at risk. Since these ended up everywhere in late August, the number has dropped significantly.
