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“We are not in an emergency situation,” health director Jean-Pierre Gallati (SVP) said on Monday when he reported on the current situation of the crown in the canton. “There is no need for further action at the moment,” Canton doctor Yvonne Hummel said at the same news conference.
On Wednesday it sounded very different: “The canton of Aargau shares the Federal Council’s assessment that the development of the epidemiological situation in recent days requires a tightening of protection measures to combat the coronavirus pandemic,” said the governing council .
The government welcomes the proposed federal rules in principle, but does not want to close restaurants on Sundays and allow groups of up to ten people to meet privately during the holiday period. The health director, Jean-Pierre Gallati, explains the background in a short interview.
Mr Gallati, on Monday you said that Aargau was not in an emergency situation, that stricter measures from the crown were not urgently needed.
Jean-Pierre Gallati: On Monday I wanted to make it clear that no express cantonal resolution was needed over the weekend. We had discussed a possible tightening in the governing council and we wanted to approve it on Wednesday. Now that the Federal Council has taken the lead, some cantons have to reverse their adjustments, so our path in Aargau was not so wrong.
In the conference call with the Federal Council over the weekend, you announced that Aargau would tighten the measures, what did you plan?
We had consulted intensively with the other cantons in northwestern Switzerland and also with Zurich and were planning similar measures. These would not have gone as far as the hardening that the Federal Council now wants to introduce. But they would have affected similar areas; we, in Aargau, for example, would have advanced the curfew in gastronomy.
There are many infections in private meetings, the contacts are not registered. However, you want to be less strict than the federal government and allow ten people from various households to meet during the holiday period.
Now it’s about people staying home. That is why restaurants and gyms must also close at 7 pm even though protection concepts work, although there are hardly any infections there. The goal is to make it less attractive to go out and meet other people. On the other hand, if it imposes such restrictions on the population, it should be less restrictive in the private sphere. That is why we demand that families of up to ten people from various households be able to meet from December 24 to January 1. The most important thing is that the population supports and participates in the measures.
