Switzerland Today
Hello from Bern,
Here are the news and stories making the rounds here in sunny Switzerland today.
In the News: shorter quarantine; more cyberattacks
- The government has announced it is shortening the Covid quarantine and isolation period to five days, following an outcry from business associations struggling to cope with worker shortages. The authorities assume that at the height of the Omicron wave, some 10-15% of the working population will be in isolation or in quarantine. The government also said it will consult with cantons on two other proposals: extending current corona measures until March and shortening the validity of the Covid certificate from one year to nine months. Meanwhile, cases continue to reach record levels with more than 32,000 new infections reported today. Hospitalisations have increased but at a much lower rate.
- International students are still coming to Switzerland despite the pandemic, but fewer are coming from outside Europe. That’s according to official federal statistics for 2020, which note a 4% increase in international students. But while numbers may be up, international students represent a smaller share of new students.
- Car dealer Emil Frey became the latest victim of a cyberattack yesterday, heightening concerns about Switzerland’s ability to prevent similar threats. Today, the government presented a proposal that would require operators of critical infrastructure to report cyberattacks with the potential for significant damage. Currently, this is only voluntary, and yet the National Cyber Security Center still receives an average of more than 300 reports of actual or attempted cyberattacks every week. One can only imagine how many reports would come in if it is made obligatory. According to a study by experts from Check Point Research (CPR), there were 65% more cyberattacks on companies in Switzerland in 2021 than in the previous year.
To stay or to go? Swiss researchers face tough choices on EU grants
Let’s start with the good news. Some 28 researchers at Swiss institutions received grants of about €1.5 million on average from the EU Horizon Europe’s programme for young scientists and scholars. This includes 11 researchers at the Federal Institute of Technology ETH Zurich working on topics from machine learning in medicine to how planets are created.
Now for the bad news. To accept these grants, the researchers will have to relocate to an institution outside Switzerland, specifically to one of the countries in the European Union or a Horizon Europe eligible country.
This is what Swiss scientists feared after talks broke down on a framework agreement between the bloc and the Alpine nation last May. This led to Switzerland being shut out of the prestigious and well-endowed European research programme.
“We are now starting to see the direct effects of our exclusion from Horizon Europe. The first to be affected are the highly talented researchers at the beginning of their research career,” said Detlef Günther, Vice President for Research at the ETH.
The fact that Swiss-based researchers were awarded grants at all is a stroke of luck as the call for proposals went out before the political talks broke down in May. As things stand now, researchers here won’t be able to even apply for such grants in the future.
And while the Swiss government is stepping in to cover the grants in order to keep the bright, young researchers at Swiss institutions, this isn’t a long-term solution.
Swiss researchers aren’t about to give up though. As Le Temps writes today, there is a planExternal link to launch a new pan-European initiative called “stick to science” on February 8. Details are thinExternal link but the overall aim appears to be to keep politics out of science.
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Someone from the Swiss government should be at the Olympics, but who?
The Swiss public have been waiting impatiently for news about how Switzerland will navigate some delicate diplomacy surrounding the Olympic Games in Beijing, which will start in a few weeks. The US, Canada and several other countries have already announced diplomatic boycotts over the human rights situation in China. The Chinese government has rejected the allegations of human rights violations and announced “decisive countermeasures”.
Calls to boycott have become louder in Switzerland. On Tuesday, the Tibetan Youth Association in Europe staged demonstrations against the Games in five Swiss cities.
Today, the Swiss government agreed that it will be the pandemic that decides whether the Swiss government will head to Beijing, rather than human rights or international calls for a boycott. Federal Council spokesperson André Simonazzi said someone from the government will in all likelihood head to Beijing, but that the final decision would be made on short notice.
Who will represent the government though? The Swiss president almost always attends but earlier in the day, the Tages-Anzeiger suspected that the current president, Ignazio Cassis, would sit out the Olympics to avoid the political thicket. But the paper said there could be another reason:External link the pandemic is going to suck the fun out of an Olympic visit.
Forget shaking hands with athletes and attending parties throughout the city. The paper quotes a person close to the government who joked that anyone flying to Beijing “will sit alone in a glass booth during the entire opening ceremony in the stadium and then fly home again”.
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