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Today in Switzerland: A roundup of the latest news on Thursday

Helena Bachmann
Helena Bachmann - [email protected]
Today in Switzerland: A roundup of the latest news on Thursday
More travellers can now come to Switzerland without the quarantine. Photo by Zurich Airport

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

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Six regions of neighbouring countries removed from Switzerland’s high-risk list

Starting today, France’s Région Occitanie and Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, Germany’s Land Sachsen and Thüringen, as well as Italy’s Regione Campania and Puglia are off the list.

Also Croatia, Cyprus, Iran, Luxembourg, and Turkey are no longer considered as high risk areas by Switzerland’s Health Ministry.

This means that arrivals from these places are no longer required to quarantine in Switzerland, although they still need to  provide a negative Covid test, unless they are fully vaccinated or have recently recovered from the disease.

READ MORE: Switzerland to lift Covid testing and quarantine requirements for some travellers

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Swiss pharmaceutical industry alarmed over the end of negotiations with the EU

The association of Swiss pharmaceutical companies, which includes such giants as Roche and Novartis, is calling on the Federal Council to resume negotiations with Brussels.

The breakdown in talks is a blow to the Swiss pharmaceutical branch and related research, the industry association Interpharma wrote in an open letter to the federal government, published Wednesday by the Neue Zürcher Zeitung.

The competitiveness and strength of the Swiss pharmaceutical and research sector “are decisively linked” to the EU, its main trading partner, where the industry exports 46 percent of its products, the letter states.

READ MORE: EXPLAINED: Why did Switzerland call off EU talks and what are the consequences?

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Can an algorithm predict the end of coronavirus pandemic?

A Swiss online simulator creates algorithmic projections on the rest of the pandemic, based on to the degree of vaccination.

It shows that at the current rate, Switzerland could achieve collective immunity — when 80 percent of the population is fully immunised — on October 8th .

However, the calculation doesn’t take into account the variable availability of vaccines, the appearance of new variants of the virus against which the current vaccines would not necessarily be effective, or the number of people who are immune after recovering from the disease.

You can now tap beer yourself at Coop

The retailer introduced the first self-use bottling stations for mineral water and beer in order to reduce packaging material.

Customers can now fill Rhäzünser mineral water and Valaisanne beer into specially provided containers in selected Coop supermarkets in northwestern Switzerland.

From August, the supermarket chain will expand the filling stations to include some foods, as well as laundry and dishwashing detergents.

Employment in Switzerland is on the rise

The number of job vacancies in Switzerland increased by 7.9 percent  between April and May 2021, and by 178 percent since January, according to the Swiss Job Index by recruitment agency Michael Page.

This is the strongest monthly growth rate this year, even higher than in the same pre-Covid period. The greatest demand is for specialists in the logistics, IT, engineering, infrastructure management, as well as pharmaceutical sectors.

All regions recorded positive growth, starting with central Switzerland (+ 12.7 percent), followed by Bern, Neuchâtel and Fribourg (8 percent) —almost at the same level as Geneva, Vaud, and Valais (7.9).

 

If you have any questions about life in Switzerland, ideas for articles or news tips for The Local please get in touch with us at [email protected]

 

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