[ad_1]
Marcel Salathé criticizes the official mentality of the authorities in the face of the growing number of cases. Testing and contact tracing worked too slowly. The cantons are fighting back.
The epidemiologist Marcel Salathé provokes the cantons.
After Marcel Salathé was present on all channels in the spring, things have gotten quieter in recent weeks about the epidemiologist from ETH Lausanne. He contributed to the rapid development of the Swiss Covid app and is a member of the scientific working group advising the Federal Council. But now Salathé is back in the headlines, with a surprisingly aggressive barrage against the cantons. “You have to rethink in the cantons, then someone finally has to hit the table and say: it doesn’t work like that anymore,” Salathé said in an interview with the daily Tamedia. The scientist adopts a severe tone and criticizes the cantons in all areas: “If everything does not work ahead and behind, we all have a problem.” Salathé accuses them of being an official. The virus is still believed to adapt to officials’ office hours, he said. You can only see that in the number of cases. “Why do they always go down on weekends and come back up on Wednesdays?” Asks Salathé.
Criticize that too much valuable time is being wasted. Many people still waited two or three days for the test result. Then it was another two or three days before the contact tracker called. “So, of course, a lot of infections were ended.”
GDK President Engelberger contradicts criticism
The epidemiologist’s generalized stroke is not well received. Reactions range from astonishment to anger. Some are bothered by the scientist’s self-presentation. “I consider the general criticism of contact tracing from the cantons to be ineffective and inappropriate,” says Lukas Engelberger, president of the Cantonal Conference of Health Directors (GDK): “It is a mixture of accusations that do not stand up to reality in an inspection nearest. ”For example, the lowercase figures over the weekend were not, as allegedly, due to the opening hours of search offices, but mainly to the fact that potentially infected people were less likely to be infected. they did the test before or during the weekend.
According to Engelberger, contact trackers do a very dedicated job in all cantons. “Drawing the conclusion from examples of delayed reports that the whole process is not working is not correct,” says the president of GDK. There are currently around 1,500 isolated people in Switzerland. In addition, 11,000 people are in quarantine after arriving from a country at risk.
Salathé’s criticisms also find misunderstanding in the canton of Zurich. “There is not much of a civil servant mentality here,” says Government Counselor Natalie Rickli. On the contrary, many employees have worked long overtime and exceptional commitment since February. The contact tracing team is on duty seven days a week from 6:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. Rickli admits that in light of the dynamics of the pandemic, new daily questions as well as expectations and demands from various sides It is clear that not everything can go perfectly.
Result in 24 hours
According to health director Pierre-Alain Schnegg, in the canton of Bern with almost one million inhabitants, 90 percent of those examined receive the result within 24 hours. “We are constantly working to improve the system, for example by expanding testing capabilities.” If the test is positive, those infected must be contacted within a day. However, it is not always possible to speak with those affected within this period because it is sometimes difficult to reach them.
According to the government councilors and the cantonal doctors surveyed, the tracing of contacts also currently works in medium and small cantons. Glarus Health Director Rolf Widmer describes Salathé’s “black and white statements as nonsense.” The cantons are not responsible for the increasing number of cases. After a Covid test, the health department received the test result the next day. The contact tracing team will contact the patient within a maximum period of five hours. In individual cases, it could take longer.
One thing is that Salathé’s statements have little relation to the reality of the cantons. The other is trust in the authorities. Zug’s government adviser Martin Pfister fears such statements mean that official orders are taken less seriously. Pfister also considers “the widespread accusations of the scientist in the media” very problematic. This damages the credibility of science.
Confidence in information provided by authorities is waning
geo. The Federal Office of Public Health (BAG) presented this Friday a survey carried out by the Sotomo research institute that was carried out in July. The requirement to wear a mask on public transport is accepted by a large part of the population. A mask requirement at work or on the street, on the other hand, clearly fails. In principle, respondents continue to trust. But the virus is now perceived as more threatening again, Michael Hermann von Sotomo told the media.
Sotomo pollsters also examined the public’s interest in information about the coronavirus. According to the survey, this is slowly decreasing, as is confidence in the information provided by the authorities, but also in the media. This likely has something to do with the increase in the number of cases, but also inconsistent crisis communication. So it’s questionable whether the temporary waiver of regular pressure points with federal experts really makes sense. The regular information provided by the federal government served as a guide for a large part of the population.
