All European football fans, including me, are excited for the soccer European Championship “Euro 2020” which is played in these weeks.
Some days ago the match I had been waiting for for 20 years finally happened: Italy-Switzerland… and Italy won 3-0!
I come from Milano (Italy) and I have been living for 20 years in Switzerland, Canton Argovia. As probably many other emigrants, I feel well in the Confederation, but when Italy shall be supported I have no doubt about my homeland and the national Italian pride is at its top. Equipped with the tricolour flag at the window, Gattuso’s shirt from 2006 and a lot of enthusiasm for our soccer heroes, I watched a great show on the pitch.
By now the passport can be both Italian and Swiss, but my “heart” remains white, red and green!
This week Switzerland has been crossed by snow storms for days. Some mountain cantons have many villages isolated…
And even Zurich city is blocked: trams and public transportation are stopped.
The snow, with its silent white cover, makes everything the same. Even Switzerland, the organised country, where everything is planned, is shut down by the snow like every other “normal” country…
Last night we had a nice dinner with a good bottle of red wine, which was in my Company’s this year’s Christmas present.
Very good wine, a blend of Malbec and Cabernet-Sauvignon, from a local Argovian producer.
It was also quite strong. I checked the bottle and I saw the “magical” number: 13.2% vol. alcohol! Thirteen POINT TWO!
Have you ever seen this? I would have expected either 13% or 13.5%. But POINT TWO was an absolute prime for me.
Maybe even the percentage of alcohol in Switzerland is calculated and indicated on the bottle in their own unique Swiss way…
I know, it is a modest goal, but it sounds nice: 200 followers!
It is nothing compared to the social media’s “giants” with million followers…
I started some years ago as a foreigner in Switzerland with no followers and no clue. In the meantime I am no longer foreigner in the Confederation and can count some hundreds followers!
Have fun and, if you like, continue checking my blog to know what is going on… around the Alps…
Last week I was passing by the “Gemeindehaus” (Parish hall) of the village where I live, when I noticed such installation of drawers!
(How many times I already saw it without getting it?)
I went closer and I finally understood: the small drawers are a real free bookstore! Each mini drawer contains a book and its color indicates the book subject. You can choose among various themes: Bestsellers, thrillers, biographies, etc…
This is a great initiative organised by the cultural department of the village. You pick up a book, bringing and leaving there another book of yours!
Covid-times? Ok, the picked up book can be always thoroughly disinfected, can’t it?
Switzerland is often seen as a paradise, where everything is supposed to be working well. However, in this period, the situation is dramatic or even desperate in some cases, even if here they are quite good in “hiding the dust or uncomfortable matters under the carpet…”.
In particular, the government and the cantons made and are still guiltily making a lot of mistakes, getting a lot of critics from all over the world. Just to try to save economics (Even if a lot of people have been already “silently” and quickly fired from many Companies), health is considered as a second priority, with preventive measures against COVID-19 which are too weak and, considering the infection numbers, clearly ineffective.
The “Tages Anzeiger”, the daily newspaper from Zurich and one of the most important in Switzerland, analysed what foreign press thinks of the Swiss way to fight the COVID-19 emergency. Here the most significant quotes.
“Switzerland is still thinking of being a particular case…” (Foreign Policy, USA)
“It has been returned too quickly to the politics of the small cantons…” (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, DE, regarding the continuous passing the buck regarding the responsibilities to define what to do between the central federal State and the 26 cantons)
“Switzerland is the second Sweden…” (Welt, DE)
“Why the government continues to be reluctant to take severe decisions?…” (Süddeutsche Zeitung, DE)
“A risky strategy…” (Financial Time, UK).
“A perfect example of what Germany should not do…” (Karl Lauterbach, German socialist politician and professor of health economics and epidemiology at the University of Cologne)
“…more testimonials tell about a Swiss weak approach, for a long time, with superficial preventive measures in the Companies, protocols which were not complied with, basically about a situation which created COVID carriers” (Corriere della Sera IT, regarding the dramatic increase of infections and quarantines in a small city, Arcisate, near the border with Switzerland).
It is crazy to see the passivity and lack of vision of the Swiss government which, in front of a continuous increase of infections, hospitalisations and deaths, almost every day holds monotonous and boring press conferences, only to acknowledge the situation with no gut and no flexibility to change the route inside this terribly disruptive storm!
Do you know what happened to the mentioned CEO of the shopping centre “Shoppi Tivoli” after he authorised the 50th anniversary party with a lot of people too near to each other and often without masks?
Think… The precise Switzerland…
Think… The rigid and respectful Switzerland…
Think… The healthy Switzerland…
Think… The balanced Switzerland…
Think… The practical Switzerland, where you pay a fine if you park your car ten seconds more than the allowed time…
Think… The right Switzerland, where you can throw the used glass bottles only in special times…
Think…
Think…
Think…
NOTHING! That CEO got neither a fine, nor he was arrested. He just has to adjust and submit again his safety concept for the nice shopping centre to the authorities!
Scandalous, isn’t it?
But it is not finished.
He even had the gut to proclaim his satisfaction for shrinking away with no financial consequence! Unbelievable!
From the English version of the official website of the Swiss Federal Office of Public Health FOPH
It is not fair to criticise government decisions during an emergency, but if these decisions directly contributed to spread the Coronavirus infections, causing a lot of deaths, then I think they should be denounced. Hopefully that everything can work as a lesson learned.
The Swiss government, the Swiss perfect application of the federal state which gives full powers to the Cantons regarding the public health, the slowness of the Swiss politicians, and the absence of humility to learn from other countries are dramatically and very quickly dragging Switzerland into a new severe COVID-19 emergency, putting this small Country very low in the ranking of the efficiency of the implemented measures to combat COVID-19!
Here some macroscopic evidences and unforgivable Swiss mistakes since the start of the pandemic.
1) During the “first wave” of the contagion, started also in Switzerland at the very end of February 2020, the main consultant of the federal government and communicator on COVID-19 matters was a certain Dr Daniel Koch, so-called “Mr Corona”, head of the department of infectious diseases of the Federal Office for Public Health. In some interviews, he started minimising the pandemic, “showing off” his very past experiences in Africa during the Ebola outbreak, and adopting the still disgusting comparison between COVID-19 and the “usual” flue. He never warned about the use of protective masks; on the contrary he always said that the social distancing would have been enough, even on the public transportation, to avoid any contagion! According to Dr Koch, masks would have given the people a fake feeling of safety. When Dr Koch was calmly spitting his “truths”, all the world, including (even if late) WHO, already recognised the importance of adopting protective masks to control the diffusion of possible infections.
Dr Koch retired in April and stopped brainwashing the Swiss population, who was never really taking into account the possibility of using masks indoor, only relying on hygiene and the 1.5 meter distance. Distance which, by the way, very few were really keeping, misunderstanding the “common” maximum 50 cm with the minimum 1.5 meter! However Dr Koch left no real successor as single point of communication and expertise, leaving the health minister quite alone.
2) Switzerland introduced the mask obligation, on the public transportation only, on the 6th July 2020, i.e. more than 4 months after the start of the emergency! A scandalous delay!
3) Even if some cantons obliged the use of masks indoor, some others never imposed this measure, despite the exponentially increasing number of infections. Unacceptable!
4) Finally, with a guilty and unforgivable delay, the Swiss federal government obliged the use of masks indoor (public places, stations, bus stops, airports, …) only on the 19th October 2020, 7 months after the start of the COVID-19 “hell”! Unbelievable!
5) After having reported increasing new infections every day for the last two weeks, last Friday, 23rd October, Switzerland hit 6’634 new infections in one day. Considering that Switzerland has a population of slightly more than 8’500’000 inhabitants, you can calculate what this number would mean in your own country…
6) Although the infection numbers are increasing exponentially in the last weeks, after obliging the use of protective masks, the health minister, Alain Berset, and the government are hesitating to define new more severe rules to try to contain and reduce the number of infections. The health minister promised new measures but not before next Wednesday, 28th October. Why? Because he has to agree these measures with the cantons (and probably with his government mates…).
When the emergency can put the health of the population at risk, the actions shall be severe and quick and not just politically aimed at not changing the daily routine of the population! Why not “motivating” the respect of the rules by introducing significant fines for not following them, to eventually finance the most penalised working categories in this emergency?
One of the worldwide actions to fight COVID-19 is (still) the social distancing.
In Switzerland they have been proud for long time having set 2m as distance everyone has to keep from the others to protect himself/herself and the others.
This 2m “mantra” is more than the Italian 1m, or the German 1.5m or the vague “according to the common sense” prescribed in Sweden and France. And the Swiss are very happy for this.
But the fact is that very very very very few people respect the 2m distance in the Confederation (maybe no one knows how does a 2m separation look like?): the distance often becomes 20cm as a practical rule here!
But the most of the people is very keen and honored, unfortunately, on not wearing protective masks! Even the government was and still is very foggy regarding the use of masks! Just 6% of the people use masks on the public transportation!
20 actual cm and 6%! These are the numbers that, for me, confirm the fact that the low COVID-19 infection cases in Switzerland at the moment is just due to luck…
Real Swiss 