Geneva | Switzerland, which had been hailed for having overcome the first wave without too much worry or confinement, however, cannot overcome the second wave, which kills more than a hundred per day.
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“We have an incidence rate twice as high as Germany”, warned the president, Simonetta Sommaruga, presenting a package of measures including the closure of restaurants, bars and shops at 7 p.m.
“We are in a critical situation”, with an exponential growth of the epidemic and hospitals close to “their limits”, she added.
The health situation in Switzerland, which has one of the highest contamination rates in Europe, has never been so bad, with some 5,000 new cases per day, against a few hundred during the first wave, and a positive rate. tests that remain at levels far too high.
Restaurants closed at 7 p.m.
Faced with this development of the epidemic, the government adopted, Friday, restrictions, which are however much less severe than in other European countries, despite the gravity of the situation.
From December 12 until January 22, restaurants and bars will have to close at 7 p.m.
Cantons whose epidemiological development is favorable may postpone the closing time until 11 p.m., which is currently the case in the French-speaking cantons, detailed the Minister of Health Alain Berset to journalists.
Shops, markets, museums and libraries, as well as sports and leisure facilities, will also have to close at 7 p.m. and on Sundays.
And with a few exceptions, such as religious services, all events will be banned, while sports and cultural activities will be allowed for groups of up to five people.
The government, on the other hand, has given up imposing new restrictions on private meetings, maintaining the limit of ten people, including children, and urges not to meet with more than two households in the private setting.
Ski resorts will also remain open, but Health Minister Alain Berset called on European tourists at a press conference on Friday not to come and ski in Switzerland.
Coronagraben
During the first wave, during which schools, restaurants and non-essential stores were closed without however containment being put in place, many people praised the government’s management of the health crisis, which focused on “individual responsibility” for the disease. population to respect barrier gestures.
The lifting of these restrictions led to a relaxation of the population this summer, at the origin of the second wave. But the epidemic revealed discrepancies between linguistic regions – both in terms of the number of cases and the measures taken, a ditch dubbed “coronagraben” (corona ditch).
Thus, this fall, after having first struck the Latin cantons (French-speaking and Italian-speaking), which took measures, the epidemic hit the German-speaking cantons, in no hurry to act despite repeated calls from the government, who finally decided on Friday to act.
Many believe that the French-speaking cantons, which were loosening the screw in the face of COVID-19, are paying for the lack of responsibility of the German-speaking cantons.
“The Confederation had been called upon to react by the French-speaking cantons, it did not do so. Today, she cannot make a choice that goes in the opposite direction because the epidemic is now developing more in German-speaking Switzerland ”, underlined the Geneva deputy of the Center Delphine Bachmann, on public television RTS .
The anger of the French-speaking cantons, which this week issued a joint press release expressing their discontent at the management of the crisis, is all the stronger as the Federal Council had, since the start of the second wave, left the hand to the cantons.
“The Federal Council has created real chaos. It is the cantonal authority which must decide, it was the strategy of the Federal Council. Now they have changed their attitude, ”Marco Chiesa, the president of the right-wing populist UDC party, the leading Swiss party, told RTS.