A number of countries have managed to stem the spread of SARS-CoV-2. Island nations that moved swiftly, like New Zealand and Iceland, reported no new cases of infection yesterday. Some observers, looking at the low number of Covid-19 deaths in places like Iceland (10) and New Zealand (20), are describing the recent restrictions on businesses […]
Recent research contradicts Swiss government view that children rarely transmit Covid-19
The Swiss government has decided to reopen schools on 11 May 2020. Behind the decision is a belief that children do not play a major role in transmission of the virus. Switzerland’s federal governments says children rarely fall ill, and when they do they present few to no symptoms and rarely transmit the virus. Speaking […]
Coronavirus: small resurgence in new case numbers in Switzerland
Between Saturday 25 April and Wednesday 29 April 2020, the daily number of new cases in Switzerland fell consistently. On Saturday there were 217 new cases, on Sunday there were 167, on Monday 103 and on Tuesday 100. However, on Wednesday the number of new daily cases rose to 143, rising further to 179 on […]
Coronavirus: scientists see spread in Swiss waste water
Scientists at EPFL and Eawag have worked out how to detect Covid-19, even at low concentrations, in Switzerland’s waste water. Such a system could be used to warn of a resurgence of cases earlier than clinical diagnostic tests, possibly one week earlier. Initial wastewater samples from Lausanne, Zurich and Lugano have been analysed. Samples collected […]
Coronavirus: children under 10 can safely hug grandparents, say Swiss authorities
Daniel Koch, head of infectious diseases at Switzerland’s Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH), said experts at universities in Zurich, Bern and Geneva had concluded that children under 10 did not transmit the virus, according to RTS. “There is no indication that young children infect them and present a danger to them”, said Koch. However, […]
Coronavirus: Swiss schools and other establishments set to reopen
On 29 April 2020, Switzerland’s government announced plans to allow schools and other establishments to reopen on Monday 11 May 2020. From 11 May 2020, shops, restaurants, markets, museums, libraries, primary and lower secondary schools and sports training centres will be allowed to reopen. In addition, public transport will operate according to the standard timetable, […]
Coronavirus: relatively few medical staff infected in Switzerland
In Switzerland, around 3% of medical staff have been infected with Covid-19, based on data covering the period up until Easter, according to Switzerland’s Federal Office of Public Health. The highest rates of infection were among staff in French- and Italian-speaking Switzerland, regions with Switzerland’s highest infection rates. The low rate suggests the Swiss health […]
Coronavirus: 5.5% of Geneva might be infected, according to antibody study
A study done by researchers at Geneva’s HUG hospital suggests a Covid-19 infection rate of 5.5% across the canton of Geneva. Antibody blood tests, run on a randomly selected sample of the canton’s population, suggest around 27,000 might have been infected by the virus, a number 5.7 times the official count of 4,733 recorded on […]
Swiss hospitals to restart non-urgent operations
From Monday, Switzerland’s hospitals will be allowed to restart non-urgent operations as the federal government’s relaxes restrictions put in place to reduce the spread of the Covid-19 virus, according to RTS. There are currently around 1,300 Covid-19 patients in Switzerland’s hospitals, of which around 200 are in intensive care. This number is less than half […]
Researchers in Switzerland create a Covid-19 detector
A new device developed at Empa, ETH Zurich and Zurich University Hospital can detect Covid-19. In future the device could be used to measure the concentration of the virus in the environment – for example in places where there are crowds or in hospital ventilation systems. Before the COVID-19 outbreak, the team, headed by Jing […]
