Switzerland Today

Hello from Bern,

Switzerland is moving from stage two to three of its get-out-of-Covid strategy: from “stabilisation” to “normalisation”. What does that mean? For now, not much. But life (or at least testing) looks set to get more expensive for the non-vaccinated in the autumn…

Keystone / Martin Ruetschi

In the news – government get-together

Ministers met on Wednesday for the first time after the summer holidays, with a flurry of decisions:

Covid: as of today, every citizen who wants to get vaccinated has had the chance to do so, the government reckons. The move from the “stabilisation” to the “normalisation” phase of its coronavirus strategy can thus begin. What this means is more theoretical than practical; the goal is no longer to protect the unvaccinated but to avoid hospital overloading. All current measures (there are “not many”, says Health Minister Alain Berset) remain in place. In October, there should be some changes, such as getting rid of free testing for the unvaccinated.

Climate: the government has presented a counter-project to the so-called “Glacier Initiative”, a people’s initiative that wants to reach carbon-neutrality by 2050. The government agrees with the overall objective of the project, but not with all the details: its counter-proposal would not aim to eliminate fossil energy completely; and there would also be special dispensations for mountain and “peripheral” regions. Both proposals will now head to parliament for debate.

Cordiality: the government has urged parliament to release a cohesion payment to the European Union (EU) “at the earliest possible opportunity”. The CHF1.2 ($1.3 billion) sum, which has been blocked by disputes for a few years, goes towards financing reforms in newer members of the European bloc. On Wednesday, the government said a fast payment could “inject fresh momentum into Swiss-EU relations following the end of negotiations on the institutional agreement” in May.

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Trending – Where (and who) is Wilson?

Swiss Twitter feeds have been full of a man called Wilson Edwards, a biologist from Bern who claims to have high-level contacts at the World Health Organisation. Edwards (not in the list of the 20 most common surnames in Switzerland) had been pitching into the online debates about “the lab hypothesis”, which claims that Covid-19 originally broke out of a research institute in Wuhan before going global. Edwards says his friends at WHO have come under political pressure from the US to falsify their findings, and to highlight a connection to Wuhan.

As a neutral and credible Swiss scientist (like all Swiss scientists of course!), the theories of Mr Edwards play into the hands of anyone looking to spread a narrative about a witch-hunt against China; Edwards’ theories did the rounds in Chinese media. However, the problem is not that his theories are groundless (that’s another question), but rather that Mr Wilson himself doesn’t seem to exist. On Tuesday, the Swiss embassy in Beijing released a statementExternal link to say there is no Swiss scientist with such a name, and that the Facebook profile (which had three friends) is bogus. If there is a Mr Wilson out there, the embassy suggested, he should get in touch. In the meantime, media should ignore him and remove references to him.

A semi-amusing story with a more sinister undertone? It’s the second time in the past week that an online kerfuffle involving Switzerland and China has been in the news, after the Neue Zürcher Zeitung wrote last week about a St Gallen PhD candidateExternal link who claims his university dropped him because of China-critical tweets – something the university of St Gallen denies, although it has opened an inquiry. As for China and online information, in June Twitter announced it was shutting down tens of thousands of accounts linked to the Chinese regime in a move against disinformation. The accounts were active in “publishing geopolitical theories favourable to the Chinese communist party”, Twitter said.

Keystone / Luca Zennaro

V-access for Swiss Abroad, continued

As we wrote last week, for some Swiss Abroad, accessing a vaccine against Covid-19 isn’t plain sailing. Firstly, some of them, especially in Asia and South America, simply can’t get access to a jab. Second, some of those who do get vaccinated with a product not approved in Switzerland (from AstraZeneca, say) are not eligible for a Covid Pass here (where “approved” vaccines are those of Moderna, Johnson&Johnson and Pfizer/BioNTech).

The first of these problems is picking up political steam, with the Organisation of the Swiss Abroad (OSA) pressuring for surplus vaccines to be sent to desperate citizens abroad. So far, the requests haven’t worked; the government says its contracts with vaccine providers only allow administering in Switzerland. However, the ASO now claims that vaccines could be administered in Swiss embassies – “state territory according to international conventions”, said parliamentarian and ASO member Laurent Wehrli.

As our German-speaking colleagues report, the ASO has outlined three requests in a letter to Swiss President Guy Parmelin: first, those living in countries where the health situation is “precarious” should be vaccinated at their local Swiss embassy. Second, Swiss vaccinated abroad should be eligible for a valid Covid certificate here. And third, Switzerland should “quickly” update the rules around the recognition of other Covid certificates, so that citizens don’t see their papers declared invalid when they come back.

What do you think? If you’re a Swiss abroad with a possible vaccine story you want to share, feel free to reply.