Switzerland Today

Greetings from Bern,

Much as we’d like to avoid the awful news coming out of Afghanistan, events there continue to occupy hearts and minds, with the fate of refugees a pressing issue. A few governments including the UK and the US have said they will take in tens of thousands of refugees, but many more in the West – including the one with a seat in Bern – are more hesitant. There is a true concern among humanitarian advocates that, if past refugee crises are anything to go by, vulnerable Afghans knocking on Europe’s doors may be left in the lurch.

Keystone / Cyril Zingaro

In the News: Good news – sort of – for Swiss living abroad (and cross-border workers) who don’t have compulsory health insurance in Switzerland: Bern now wants to offer these persons the Covid-19 vaccine.

• Just last week the Swiss Abroad community had asked the Federal Council about access to the country’s vaccine supply. But while cross-border commuters will now have the cost of their vaccination in Switzerland covered by the state, it was not clear from today’s announcement whether this would also be the case for the Swiss Abroad and their families.
• In an announcement today that has disappointed the Afghan community and refugee advocates in Switzerland, the Swiss government refrained – for now, anyway – from committing to a large-scale reception of Afghans beyond the 230 local staff of the Swiss development agency and their families.
• The government has decided againstExternal link introducing state-run courses for imams as a way of preventing potential radicalisation. Training would run counter to the state’s obligation to not interfere in religious communities, the government said.

Keystone / Davide Agosta

Just as the fourth wave of the pandemic threatens to hit the country, the Swiss are getting familiar with a fresh face at the helm of the national Covid-19 scientific taskforce: Tanja Stadler, a 40-year-old expert on viruses who teaches at the ETH Zurich.

Stadler (pictured in the banner photo above) is the third person to occupy the post since the government created the group in March 2020. She has been the subject of countless media interviewsExternal link in the last couple of days. Among the questions she’s being asked is how authorities can better protect the group of people who now appears most vulnerable to catching the disease: children under 12, who under current policies are not eligible for the Covid vaccine.

The scientist is advocating non-intrusive measures to protect kids, such as CO2 sensors, air filters, testing, and masks for older children to reduce the risk of outbreaks.

Yet, many cantons have done away with a mask mandate for pupils or their teachers in primary schools, just as children across the country head back to class this month. The testing policies also vary from place to place, with some offering regular tests and others opting to do them only if cases of Covid emerge.

As one cantonal education minister told Swiss public radio RTS, “our objective is to experience school in the most normal way possible, without being naïve”.

Stadler told the Tages Anzeiger newspaper it was “extremely important for children” to keep schools open but added that she expected “almost all children will come into contact with the coronavirus.”

“With such a large number of infections, there will be severe cases,” she continued – though how dangerous the Delta variant is for children is still unclear from the experience of countries that have registered growing numbers of pediatric hospitalisations.