Switzerland Today

Hello from Bern,

Where in this part of the world it’s Epiphany, or Three Kings’ Day, marking the visit of three wise men to a newborn in Bethlehem. Coming from the East, however, these days the Magi would be more likely to be met by a Covid test than by the Lord. More on Switzerland’s current stance on the virus in today’s briefing.

© Keystone / Jean-christophe Bott

In the news: more dire predictions for Swiss glaciers.

• Under current climate targets, there will be virtually no glaciers left in Central Europe by the end of the century, according to an international study with Swiss participation. Scientists looked 215,547 glaciers worldwide and simulated various scenarios; with a temperature rise of 3°C by 2100, the glaciers of Central Europe would have disappeared completely, while a rise of 1.5°C would mean melting in the order of 60%. Under current goals, the temperature rise this century is expected to be 2.7°C.
• In the view of the Swiss Energy Foundation, knowledge about the availability and usage of iodine tablets is deficient. A survey of over 8,000 people in distribution areas – within 50 kilometres of a nuclear plant – found that almost a quarter did not know where to find their tablets. Many were also not aware of who should and should not take such pills. Switzerland last distributed iodine tablets to 4.9 million residents in 2014.
• Trees absorb tiny metal particles from the air and soil and store them in their wood, the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL) has found. The particles are 1,000 times thinner than human hair, and can be pollutants if they consist of toxic heavy metals or industrial agents transporting active substances. The findings open possibilities for detecting environmental pollution or even remedying it at some point in the future, WSL said.

© Keystone / Salvatore Di Nolfi

Covid 2023: Chinese travellers, unclear figures, unused vaccines.

Despite doing our best to shove it away, Covid won’t fully oblige. There’s the question of travellers from China: the EU now recommends compulsory testing, and several member states agree. Switzerland is still weighing up options. Then there’s numbers here: the Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH) yesterday announced low infection rates over the past week – but this is also partly due to the end of free tests (and probably the holiday season), which doesn’t encourage people to check their symptoms.

And there’s all the superfluous jabs Switzerland went to the trouble of buying. Today’s NZZ tots upExternal link the “miscalculations”: of the 32.6 million doses delivered, 17 million have been used, 4.2 million have been donated to other countries, and some 3.4 million – vaccines have short shelf lives – have been binned. Added to this are another 7.8 million, which had been housed in a Belgian warehouse, which have also since been nixed, the paper writes.

And so the well-meaning officials in Bern, who took so much flak for not acting enough when the pandemic started, are now under fire for acting too much! But is it their fault? One of the main reasons for the glut is that the current booster campaign, which recommends another jab especially for older people (but it’s free for all ages), is falling on deaf ears; in the past six months, just 12% of the population have taken up the offer. The population isn’t interested in Covid; empty testingExternal link centres are another sign.

So what’s the best policy for the year to come? There could be more wastage on the way: Keystone-SDA reports that Switzerland has already signed up for deliveries of another 11.6 million jabs. As for whether to laugh or cry about it all, the NZZ’s editorial at least has a plan: declare an official end to the pandemic, move on to the epidemic, and organise a big dance to chase away the lingering virus angst. This journalist is looking forward to the FOPH’s response to that.

illustration Helen James / swissinfo.ch

From bean to cup: looking under the bonnet of the cocoa supply chain.

Switzerland is not just known for the quality of its chocolate; at 11.3 kilograms per capita each year, its also the biggest chocolate consumer in the world. But who’s profiting from all this sugary gold? Not the millions of cocoa producers in the Ivory Coast and Ghana; they take home just 7% of the profits, retailers take 45%. Can this be changed? In the 3rd and 4th instalments of our series on cocoa production in West Africa, read about a joint initiative by Ghana and the Ivory Coast to take a stand against price demands by importers, and watch a video about how cocoa pods make their way along the supply chain to become coffee and chocolate.