Switzerland Today
Hello from Bern,
Here’s what you might like to know from Switzerland and Swiss media on Thursday.
In the news – low morale, returning sports events
- The Tour de France is coming to Switzerland in 2022. On July 9 and 10 the world’s biggest cycling race will pass through the southwest of the country, notably with a stage finish in Lausanne and a stage start the next morning in Aigle. Overall, the 109th edition of the race is a fairly international one, also passing through Denmark and Belgium. Switzerland, a regular host of the Tour, last had a stage finish in Bern in 2016.
- Fans can return to watch World Cup ski and snowboard events in the Swiss Alps this winter, the national ski association said on Thursday. Last year, Covid meant many events were cancelled. For downhill skiing, the first Swiss leg of the World Cup tour this season is the women’s Super G in St Moritz on December 11-12. A Covid certificate will be required.
- A survey by insurer Swiss Life has found the population is still more pessimistic than before Covid. The proportion who often feel stressed and under pressure has more than doubled from 12% to 30%, while only 30% are unconditionally optimistic about the future, a third less than last year, the survey found. However, the proportion who feel “self-determined” in their private life has climbed 8 percentage points, to 70%.
Covid vouchers: end of the road for a “crazy idea”
Yesterday, after a lot of opposition, the government abandoned its idea of giving a CHF50 bonus to people who persuade a friend or family member to get the Covid vaccine. Should the plan have been on the table in the first place? And why was it so roundly rejected? SRF’s parliamentary correspondent reckonsExternal link the vouchers might have ended up just boosting the scepticism of those naturally wary of the state anyway; plus, in “wealthy Switzerland”, such a bonus carried a hint of “something almost immoral”, he writes. The NZZ, in a severe editorial todayExternal link, called the vouchers a “three-o-clock-in-the-morning” idea.
To bring some science into things, Le Courrier meanwhile spoke to Armando MeierExternal link, a Swiss economist who led a study on vaccine incentives in Sweden. There, Meier said, the prospect of a CHF21 bonus helped boost the rate by 4 percentage points. Greece, Serbia, New York, and Vancouver also offer monetary incentives; in parts of Germany you get a bratwurst. However, Meier says, science can’t say much about the ethical or political side of things – and as for the Swiss idea, which planned to reward persuaders rather than the persuaded, “social pressure” would have been added to the mix. Meier is also unaware of any study showing a positive impact of the dropped plan. Now, we’ll never know what might have been…
Bad luck? Swiss man narrowly misses lottery windfall
On financial incentives, Blick writes todayExternal link writes about a Zurich man who came within “a hair’s breadth” of winning the EuroMillions jackpot. Five of Vilas Kessler’s seven numbers were just one digit off the winners; another was two off, and he got one right. “The probability of coming so close is likely around as low as winning the jackpot,” Kessler “conjectured”. Indeed: as EuroMillions happily tells usExternal link, the probability of any set of seven numbers, no matter how likely or unlikely they might look, is 1 in 139,838,160. The unfortunate Kessler was no “closer” than if he had picked 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7. Not that this helps when the jackpot is CHF236 million… But Kessler can at least be consoled that his other claim, that he is “surely Europe’s biggest loser”, is also unlikely: among the populations of EuroMillions participating countries, the probability of being the biggest loser is 1 in 227,001,090. Hard luck!
Good luck? Scientists offer new clues as to Earth’s origins
What can you do with CHF236 million anyway? What about going into space! The idea of blasting into a nothingness where the only food is buttered banknotes is clearly a rich man’s game these days. But where do Elon Busk and Jeff Mezos etc. want to go? A Swiss study published this week says it at least shouldn’t be Venus. Research by the University of Geneva has questioned the assumption that the noxious planet – a similar size to Earth – was also once similar to Earth. They say temperatures at the time of its formation most likely mean Venus never had the chance to sustain oceans and was never inhabitable (and never will be). As for the initial formation of the Earth, astrophysicist Emeline Bolmont tells Le TempsExternal link that we got “lucky”: had the sun been as hot back then as it is now, “our planet never would have been inhabitable either”.
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