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The Federal Council’s goal would actually be clear: every two weeks, the number of everyone who tests positive for Covid-19 should be cut in half. Health Minister Alain Berset has publicly reiterated this today.
Compared to this goal, previous measures have failed. Because the number of reported Covid cases is not reduced by half. It has a similar scale to the end of November. Due to the fact that tests are less frequent during the holidays, the figures are less reliable than usual, but if they stagnate or decrease a little or even increase a little: the halving is different.
The Federal Council is taking its time
This worries the Federal Council, as it also says publicly. But he takes his time with action. Today it has only eliminated exemptions for cantons whose health looks a little better: now, for example, all cantons must close their restaurants and leisure facilities.
Otherwise, however, the government decided nothing today. It simply proposes that the cantons extend the rules in force until the end of February. Those rules that, in the best of cases, have brought a slight decrease, but not by half in two weeks.
High risk strategy
The Federal Council wants to decide on this in a week. And in the event of a deterioration, he wants to know as a precaution on the part of the cantons and social partners what they would think of stricter measures such as closing shops or the obligation to work from home.
Listen to the cantons, wait for more significant figures, watch: a strategy that takes a long time, from the point of view of many experts, a high-risk strategy, especially since mutated forms of the virus are also circulating in Switzerland, which are probably spread much faster than the previous one. Waiting and looking went wrong in the fall.
Hardly any safety cushion
Meanwhile, Switzerland is one of the countries with the most deaths from corona internationally. The number of infections is also very high in terms of population: countries with more than 60 infected per 100,000 people once referred to Switzerland as risk countries. She is now at 522 herself. Bottom line: We hardly have any safety cushions in case the new form of virus spreads rapidly. That’s why the Federal Council’s goal of halving the numbers every two weeks would also make sense.
However, if you do almost nothing when your own goals are clearly lost, it gives the impression that you are not taking them seriously. The argument that cantons must be heard first is correct. However, the Federal Council could have started this process earlier. It is not just today that we have learned about mutated viruses that threaten to become a new source of fire. Not even in Switzerland.
Nathalie Christen
Bundeshaus Correspondent, SRF
