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Switzerland calls 'crisis summit' in bid to avoid second lockdown

The Local
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Published: 13 Oct, 2020 CET. Updated: Tue 13 Oct 2020 22:35 CET
Switzerland calls 'crisis summit' in bid to avoid second lockdown
Swiss President Simonetta Sommaruga. Photo: FABRICE COFFRINI / AFP

The Swiss government will hold a ‘crisis summit’ on Thursday to discuss what steps can be taken to avoid a second lockdown.

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The Swiss government has called a ‘crisis meeting’ to determine how a second lockdown can be avoided. 

President Simonetta Sommaruga, Health Minister Alain Berset, Economics Minister Guy Parmelin, President of the Conference of the Cantonal Governments Christian Rathgeb, Lukas Engelberger and Christoph Brutschin, top health and economics directors, will attend the meeting. 

In calling for the 'crisis summit', Sommaruga is hoping to avoid an economically and socially destructive second lockdown, reports Swiss tabloid Blick. 

 

 

According to Blick, the government believes that if numbers continue on their present trajectory, “a new lockdown becomes increasingly likely”. 

On Tuesday October 13th, the Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH) detected a total of 1,445 new cases over the past 24 hours.

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Perhaps most concerning for the government was the increases in hospital admissions, with 70 across the past 24 hours. 

While higher case numbers can at least in part be due to more extensive testing, increases in hospitalisation can lead to overflows and higher death rates. 

'Indeed worrying'

At a press conference on Monday, Swiss Health Minister said he was "indeed worried" about the situation, whic was "critical, but under control". 

"The most important thing is to be careful, to keep your distance and to wear masks," he said .

Despite the rates, measures have been applied inconsistently across Switzerland. Around half of all cantons do not require masks in shops or supermarkets. 

UPDATE: Where in Switzerland are masks compulsory right now? 

The meeting is set to take place in Bern on Thursday. 

 

 

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Anonymous 2020/10/14 13:03
Did you not watch the news out of italy during the first lockdown?<br />
Anonymous 2020/10/14 10:48
The crisis here is only a psychological one. Swiss cumulative mortality hit long term average in week 35 of 2020 (see the graph on swprs.org). That means 2020 is a normal year in terms of deaths. It's a similar year to 2018. There is no crisis in Switzerland. Not the first time, nor this time. <br /><br />If not for the rest of the world losing its collective mind nobody would have noticed anything here, nor in Germany, nor in many other parts of the world, because the absolute numbers are tiny. People have lost all sense of proportion.<br /><br />But worse, the Blick article shows how delusional and detached from reality the ruling classes have become in every country. The story of the Emperor's New Clothes is so appropriate here. They are afraid to point out or acknowledge that COVID is another Swine Flu, it was over-estimated, that it's not actually a scary or deadly disease, and that the scientists and modellers were completely wrong because the implications of that terrify them more than the destruction they're creating with lockdowns. They are terrified to implicitly accuse their friends in other governmental leadership positions of doing the wrong thing, so they all jump off the cliff together and take the rest of us with them. <br /><br />Yet we can see with our own eyes! Deaths sitting at the flatline. Hospitalisations too. PCR tests have false positives, in fact there are numerous cases where they've had enormous FP rates (>10%), so even these few cases are certainly not real. How can anyone have confidence in Sommaruga when she calls a crisis summit over that?

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