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In July, the BAG ordered a quarantine for travel from risk countries, although the effect is minimal. This is demonstrated by the minutes of the meetings.
The travel quarantine has had little effect in Switzerland.
Photo: Ennia Leanza (Keystone / August 5, 2020)
On July 6, the Federal Office of Public Health (BAG) decided to impose a travel quarantine. Anyone entering Switzerland from a risk zone had to be quarantined for ten days. Countries with an incidence value of more than 60, that is, more than 60 infections per 100,000 people in the last 14 days, were considered risk areas.
As the “NZZ am Sonntag” (paid article) reports, the travel quarantine has done little to contain the pandemic. The Zürcher Zeitung keeps minutes of the regular meetings between the cantonal doctors and the BAG.
In one of these records from September 17, a canton calculated based on data from several cantons that only 0.4 percent of the people who were sent to quarantine actually fell ill with the coronavirus. The investigated period lasted from July 2 to September 2. BAG itself calculated a value of 0.87 percent.
“It interfered with fundamental rights”
In other words, out of every 100 people the federal government placed in travel quarantine, just under one person had contracted the corona virus. All the others were locked at home for ten days for no reason. Andrea Caroni of the FDP Council of States of the Canton of Appenzell Ausserrhoden was a sharp critic of the travel quarantine from the beginning. He finds the BAG’s approach “scandalous”: “Obviously, the federal government has arbitrarily intervened in the basic rights of the inhabitants of this country,” he says.
It sounds similar with the business-oriented think tank Avenir Suisse: “A lot of suffering and damage was caused here in the summer for minimal profit,” says research director Jürg Müller to “NZZ am Sonntag.” Müller notes that those affected were unable to work or were scammed in their spare time.
Furthermore, Avenir Suisse questions the effort the state had to make to monitor and enforce the travel quarantine: “These resources would have been better used for other preparatory work for the second wave,” says Müller.
“More like a political decision”
The BAG defended the decision in September. The minutes of the “NZZ” meeting show that the FOPH was not primarily concerned with containing the virus directly, but with deterrence: “Travel quarantine in particular also has the effect of people traveling less and traveling less to areas of risk ”is in the protocol. And furthermore: “Unrealized trips cannot be measured.” The BAG admits in the same protocol: The travel quarantine “was a more political decision.”
Even today, BAG is behind the decision. At the request of “NZZ am Sonntag”, the Federal Office wrote: “From BAG’s point of view, the measures have achieved their effect by reducing travel to risky countries in response to the quarantine obligation”. However, success cannot be measured; it is not known how the trips would have developed without the quarantine.
Last Wednesday, the BAG adjusted the provisions (read: The federal government only classifies four states as risk areas). Now only travelers coming from countries with an incidence 60 higher than that of Switzerland have to be quarantined. Currently there are only seven states and areas.
