Last week, to announce the reopening, on Monday, April 19, of the terraces of bars and restaurants, leisure and cultural establishments and sports facilities, Alain Berset, the Swiss Minister of Health, was careful not to claim that the health situation was improving. Keeping a low profile, he curtly declared that the Federal Council [le gouvernement] “Affirms that risk-taking is possible”. Then he added that “these openings are not at all a signal to relax.” In fact, Alain Berset, socialist minister, would have preferred a later easing, around the 1is may. But in the minority in the government (two socialist ministers out of seven), he was forced to bow under pressure from the right, the far right, and above all from economic and financial circles.
Because if the health situation of the Confederation is a little better than among its neighbors, the mood is not in euphoria. Bern is only slightly ahead in terms of vaccinations (8% of the population has received the two doses of vaccine). It also records delays in deliveries. For 8.5 million inhabitants, Switzerland has 2,100 contaminations daily – the British variant represents more than 90% of cases. She deplores 10,500 deaths since the start of the pandemic. Only positive point: intensive care does not lack beds in hospitals. As “the overwhelming majority of people respect the rules, we can move forward,” reassures the Minister of Health, in office since… 2012.
A decision that is not unanimous
Since Monday morning, Switzerland has released a lot of ballast. In addition to terraces, cinemas, theaters, fitness rooms and stadiums, it is possible to visit leisure centers and zoos. Guided tours are authorized in museums for groups of fifteen people; students return to their faculties; non-contact amateur sports competitions are no longer prohibited. That’s not all: the Sunday view, the Sunday weekly in Zurich, announces that the government is already planning for July to organize demonstrations bringing together a thousand people. The authorization would increase to 5,000 participants as of next September.
The country would then return to almost normal activity. Enough to make the Swiss smile. Despite everything, they were much less affected than their German, French and Italian neighbors. The unemployment rate capped at 3.4%, and the Swiss economy only contracted by 2.9% in 2020, thanks to the solidity of public finances and private households, and a still performing financial sector. For the anecdote, while the share of Swiss workers practicing telework was 34% last year, it reached 61% in the branch “financial activities”.
However, this large-scale deconstruction is not unanimous. In addition to the Socialists, Le Center, born of the recent merger of the Christian Democratic Party and the Bourgeois Democratic Party, would have liked a quieter march forward. As for Balthasar Glättli, president of the Greens, and a Zurich MP, he bluntly described the government’s decision as “irresponsible.”
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