Switzerland Today

Greetings from Bern,

Will a Swiss individual or organisation win the Nobel Peace Prize tomorrow? Who knows? I do know, however, that some Swiss commentators think the discoverers of mRNA vaccination were robbed of this year’s prize for physics (see below). I get where they’re coming from, but I also think it’s not a terrible idea for the committee to take a step back from current affairs. There’s always next year…

© Keystone / Christian Beutler

In the News: Ransomware attacks by hackers continue to increase sharply, with some 2,700 Swiss firms falling victim over the past year.

• But Beobachter news magazine said the real figure could be much higher, since many companies choose to discreetly pay ransoms demanded by hackers rather than face the reputational damage of it going public.
• Switzerland is still number one in terms of wealth management internationally, despite the growth in new assets slowing in 2020. Switzerland managed some $2.6 trillion (CHF2.4 trillion) in international assets last year. “International wealth management had a very successful year, but Switzerland couldn’t keep up with the overall market development and the gap between Switzerland and the UK and US is shrinking,” said Patrik Spiller at Deloitte Switzerland and Europe.
• GESDA, the Geneva Science and Diplomacy Anticipator, starts today and runs until Saturday. Several journalists from SWI swissinfo.ch will be attending, chatting to participants about finding solutions to a range of global challenges, such as Covid-19, AI and nanoscience. They’ll be writing about what they learn.

© Keystone / Gaetan Bally

The government last week suggested giving CHF50 ($54) to anyone who can convince someone else to get vaccinated against Covid-19. A good idea?

The cantons aren’t sure, and neither is social and economic psychologist Christian Fichter.

“We’re currently getting vaccinated to protect not only ourselves, but also society around us. There’s a social consensus that vaccination makes sense. Financial incentives make this consensus negotiable again,” Fichter told the Blick newspaperExternal link today. “You can sort of ‘buy’ the right to harm society a little. That sends the wrong signal.”

In addition, he said, people who are already critical of vaccinations are likely to become even more suspicious with the CHF50 bonus.

Fichter proposes the opposite approach: the Covid vaccination should get increasingly expensive. “You could say, for example, in December the vaccination costs CHF50, from March CHF100 and then gradually up to perhaps CHF500. This would also convey the value of the vaccination. You could almost create something like a Black Friday effect.” He said doing this would send the message that the vaccination is actually something valuable that is only offered for free owing to an emergency situation.

Keystone / Laurent Gillieron

This is Nobel Prize week, with the “big one” – Peace – being announced tomorrow at 11am.

It’s easy to criticise the awards, and the Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ) wasn’t particularly impressedExternal link with this year’s prize for physiology or medicine, which on Monday was awarded to two scientists for work that helps understand complex physical systems such as Earth’s changing climate. In its paper edition today the paper felt an obvious issue had been overlooked.

“Nothing against this year’s winnersExternal link. They’ve done a great job with their discovery of temperature and pressure sensors. They deserve the Nobel Prize. But did they have to get it this year of all years?” the NZZ wonderedExternal link.

“The decision of the jury at the Karolinska Institute seems more than erratic. It’s as if the committee wanted to prove that it’s not influenced by external events. Not even by a pandemic. This is so astonishing and incomprehensible for many, because with the mRNA vaccination a scientific achievement is ‘in the room’ that corresponds perfectly to the will of Alfred Nobel. The inventor of dynamite had his fortune transferred to a foundation, and in his will he stipulated that the interest from it should be distributed annually as a prize to those ‘who have brought the greatest benefit to humankind in the past year’. Anyone whose first thought when thinking about medicine in 2021 isn’t mRNA vaccination is either a vaccination critic or walks through the world wearing blinkers.”