Ex-Swiss health minister re-lives Covid death threats

Alain Berset needed round-the-clock personal protection during the pandemic. Keystone / Til Buergy

Stress, death threats and confusion: former Swiss health minister, Alain Berset, has opened up to public broadcaster RTS about the Covid pandemic and subsequent nationwide lockdowns.

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Five years ago, on March 13, 2020, the government imposed its first pandemic lockdown on the country. Berset was front-and-centre of the drama as the public face of these decisions.

 “In the beginning, there was a kind of shock,” said Berset, who was Interior Minister with a mandate for health between 2012 and 2023. “You could tell me something with certainty at one point and then say five hours later the opposite was true.”

“The only option in that situation was to say what you know, to say what you don’t know, and that things can change.”

“At first, the voice of science wasn’t really audible, nor was it well coordinated,” he added. But the creation of task forces improved coordination by March 2020.

The first few months of the pandemic were chaotic, involving non-stop work, recalled Berset. “I didn’t know if I could withstand such brutal pressure. I couldn’t imagine it was possible to endure it,” he said.

As health minister, Berset went to great lengths to avoid contracting Covid, avoiding all unnecessary contact for months. “I didn’t want to get sick because it could signal that I wasn’t available to manage the crisis. That’s exactly what was expected of me.”

The lockdowns and controversy over vaccines stirred up negative reactions from some sections of the population. Berset required around-the-clock personal protection for several months after receiving death threats.

“It was a crisis that stressed the population. Not everyone reacts to this stress in the same way,” he said. “Some people become violent, which is really quite spectacular for a country like Switzerland.”

Adapted from French with DeepL/mga

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