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Today in Switzerland: A round-up of the latest news on Monday

The Local
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Today in Switzerland: A round-up of the latest news on Monday
People with FFP2 protective face masks wait in front of a pharmacy in the well-known shopping street Mariahilferstrasse in Vienna on February 8, 2021 for a free antigen quick test. - Austria has ended the hard lockdown today and allowed services with the mandatory use of FFP2 protective masks and a negative coronavirus rapid antigen test. (Photo by ALEX HALADA / AFP)

Find out what's going on today in Switzerland with The Local's short roundup of the news.

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Canton of Jura gets a new city

Moutier, a town of 7,700 people, voted on Sunday to switch cantons.

In a historic vote, 54.9 percent of town residents said ‘yes’ to leaving canton Bern and ‘moving’ to French-speaking Jura.  

The town of just 7,700 people already voted in 2017 to become part of Jura but the results were nullified amid suspicions of voter fraud.

Tightening of coronavirus measures a possibility

For many health experts, a third wave of Covid-19 is a certainty, the only question is how severe it will be.

"Nobody wants to hear about further restrictions," said Jan Fehr, head of the Public & Global Health Department at the University of Zurich.

“But from a purely epidemiological point of view, it would be almost a miracle if the number of cases were to decline under the current measures. On the contrary: everything points to a significant increase ".

"We will have to - hopefully one last time - bite the bullet and tighten the measures", he added.

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Testing on the rise - but positivity increasing as well

Testing has been free in almost all cases in Switzerland for two weeks. 

According to numbers published by Switzerland's Federal Office of Public Health, testing has been on the rise

Averaging roughly 30,000 tests per day over the past few weeks, Switzerland has tested upwards of 40,000 people per day on several occasions over the past two weeks. 

READ MORE: Where can you get tested for Covid-19 in your Swiss canton for free?

Testing is expected to increase further in the lead up to Easter. 

Despite the increase in testing, the test positivity rate has also risen slightly, from five percent to 5.3 percent. 

The test positivity rate refers to the percentage of positive tests out of the whole number of tests carried out. 

 

 

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