Switzerland Today

Hello from Bern,

Here are the latest news and stories doing the rounds in Switzerland on Thursday.

Keystone / Oliver Berg

In the news – cyber-attacks, booster jabs

• More cyber-attacks in Switzerland: today’s victims were federal portal EasyGov – where the names of 130,000 companies who applied for emergency credit during the pandemic were stolen – and the events and marketing group MCH. In recent months, various public administrations and private companies have been the target of malware attacks, with experts saying the rate has been increasing. Earlier this week hundreds of thousands of Swiss mobile phone users were also sent fraudulent SMS messages.
• The question of booster Covid vaccinations is very much on the table in Switzerland, though authorities are still waiting for the opinion of the medical regulator. Swissmedic, which is studying the issue, say an answer could come in the next days or weeks. Health Minister Alain Berset, who was in the media again on Thursday pushing the vaccination campaign, said the most likely group for a first booster jab would be (unsurprisingly) over-80-year-olds.

Keystone / Ennio Leanza

Vaccination rate: a life of its own

Yesterday saw the latest government decision on Covid-19, prolonging the period of use of the Covid certificate. But how effective are all the announcements in boosting the government’s top priority – getting people vaccinated? Le Temps writes bluntlyExternal link today that, at least according to the data, the decisions “no longer have an impact”. While the roll-out of certificate rules back in September led to a slight uptick in demand, announcements since then have failed to make a difference, says data journalist (and former SWI colleague) Duc-Quang Nguyen.

The end of free testing, for example, had almost zero influence (though it did manage to decimate the amount of tests being done each week). Neither did the news that a non-mRNA vaccine from Johnson & Johnson was being made available. On the plus side, from the government’s perspective, the curve is in fact going in the right direction, albeit slowly: at the current rate, the vaccination goal of 93% of over-65-year-olds and 80% of 18-65-year-olds could be reached in around eight weeks. Let’s see if the latest plan, a November “vaccination week”, changes this. Le Temps says “there’s reasons to doubt it”.

© Keystone / Jean-christophe Bott

Cheese and chocolate: lockdown food

“The pandemic has seen savoury win out over sweet in Switzerland,” writes RTSExternal link today. The broadcaster reports that consumption of cheese has been on the rise over the past two years, while the eating of chocolate has been sinking. From 2019 to 2020, the average per capita consumption of cheese rose from 22kg to 23kg, while exports and production also boomed. Chocolate consumption dropped from 10.4kg to 9.9kg per capita, with exports and production also suffering. Experts interviewed by RTS reckon the causes of this might be directly linked to the pandemic (i.e. people were meeting up less and sharing less chocolate), as well as a general trend towards healthy eating. The lack of tourists may also be a factor.

Keystone / Georgios Kefalas

Mask law – authorities consider how to implement the burka ban

In March this year Switzerland voted narrowly in favour of the so-called “burka ban”. Just after the vote, questions already came up about how to implement it: should it be done at the cantonal level? Should the government make the law? What about exceptions? Yesterday, the government took a first step in drafting a constitutional article, laying out in painstaking detail where the ban will apply (almost all publicly accessible spaces) and where it won’t (in religious buildings, for reasons of protection from heat or cold, and for medical reasons, i.e. anti-Covid masks).

Other more light-hearted exceptions include carnivals, Halloween, bachelor parties, or where “people dress as chocolate bunnies for marketing purposes, or as cows or mountain goats to promote tourism”. However, the most contentious point, according to the NZZExternal link, is when it comes to public demonstrations: here, in a rather liberal gesture, the government suggests the ban should not apply when remaining anonymous is necessary for one’s own safety – e.g. for protests against an authoritarian regime, or when a protest might put one’s job at risk. Whether it’s “necessary” for e.g. football hooligans to cover their faces during post-game riots is less certain. The law should be introduced by 2023.