Swiss to re-open restaurants, ease quarantine rules

Restaurants will re-open fully next Monday and guest won't have to sit outside anymore to get served. Keystone/Peter Klaunzer

The Swiss government has announced further steps to ease Covid-19 restrictions as the average number of new daily infections drops below 1,000 for the first time since October.

Restaurants will be allowed to serve guests indoors as of next Monday and limits on outdoor gatherings, both in public and in private, will be raised to a maximum of 300 and 50 respectively. Public events indoors are also allowed for up to 100 with safety and hygiene conditions in place.

The government also decided to lift a rule on mandatory work-from-home and gave the green light for regular face-t0-face courses at universities and colleges.

Sports events will be made fully accessible for spectators by the end of August following a series of trials with a limited number of spectators starting in June.

Quarantine regulations are due to be lifted in principle for people who have been vaccinated or have recovered from a Covid-19 infection. This doesn’t apply to people travelling from countries with virus variants of “significant concern”.

Masks remain compulsory indoors and outside when it’s not possible to keep a minimum distance of 1.5 metres between people.

“We can say that the government’s anti-Covid strategy has worked well,” said Interior Minister Alain Berset at a news conference on Wednesday, adding that the current relaxation step is going beyond what was planned a few weeks ago.

“Every day brings us closer to the end of the pandemic, but we have to tread carefully,” he cautioned.

Next step in July

The vaccination campaign has accelerated in recent weeks with many cantons opening up vaccination to the entire adult population. So far, 17.5% of the Swiss population have been vaccinated according to the Federal Office of Public Health.

The latest announcement is part of a gradual phase-out of restrictions. The government is considering further steps for July.

Berset said normal life could resume if all people willing to get the jabs are vaccinated. He didn’t give a precise date of when this could be achieved but added that in an optimistic scenario this could be the case in mid-August or September.