Tag Archives: 3) Swiss Markets and News

Thomas Gottstein became the new CEO at Credit Suisse in February 2020. Keystone / Ennio Leanza The chief executive of Credit Suisse has vowed the bank will start 2021 with a “clean slate” after a torrid year that began with a damaging corporate spying scandal and was punctuated by embarrassing fallout from legacy compliance and lending failures. Thomas Gottstein, who replaced the ousted Tidjane Thiam in February as head of Switzerland’s second-largest lender, told...

© Laurentiu Iordache | Dreamstime.com Following the discovery of a new, more contagious variant of the coronavirus in the UK and South Africa, the Federal Council today decided to take steps to prevent the further spread of this new virus strain. On Sunday, 20 December 2020, all flights to and from these countries to Switzerland were halted from midnight. Today, the Swiss government announced that all those who have entered Switzerland from these two countries since...

The Covid-19 vaccine from Pfizer/BioNTech is one of three pre-ordered by the Swiss health authorities. Switzerland expects to start vaccinating the most vulnerable people this month already, and nationwide from January 4. Tampa Bay Times Swiss health regulator Swissmedic has approved the coronavirus vaccine from Pfizer/BioNTech. According to the Swiss authorities, the level of protection is over 90% a week after the second dose. Two months after receiving the...

© Banol2007 | Dreamstime.com Late on 20 December 2020, the Swiss government decided to suspend flights to Switzerland from the UK and South Africa following news of the discovery a new variant of SARS-CoV-2 virus. The decision by the Swiss government follows similar decisions by Germany, France, Italy, Ireland, Belgium and the Netherland. Air, road, rail and maritime links are to be suspended too. The suspension starts at midnight on Sunday, 20 December 2020 and...

Reliance on fossil fuels is putting the planet under increasing pressure. Keystone / Larry W. Smith The latest United Nations Human Development Report has found that countries, including Switzerland, still struggle to achieve high levels of human development without straining the planet. My specialty is telling stories, and decoding what happens in Switzerland and the world from accumulated data and statistics. An expatriate in Switzerland for several years, I...

An update to an antibody study conducted by HUG and UNIGE suggests that 22% of Geneva’s population had been exposed to the SARS-CoV-2 virus by December 2020. The study which began earlier in the year, and involved 2,072 people, suggests the number of people infected has doubled since June 2020 when 11% of the study sample tested positive for antibodies. © Tero Vesalainen | Dreamstime.com The latest results suggest the official number of cases significantly...

© Denis Linine | Dreamstime.com On 16 December 2020, Switzerland’s Council of States, the nation’s upper house, accepted a 2021 budget deeply in the red following its acceptance last week by the National Council. In 2021, Switzerland’s federal government plans to collect CHF 75.8 billion while spending CHF 81.9 billion, plunging the budget CHF 6.1 billion into the red. The pandemic has significantly increased spending. Spending in 2021 is expected to be 8.8% higher...

© Leigh Prather | Dreamstime.com Mistrust of vaccines against Covid-19 continues to rise in Switzerland, according to a recently published survey. A survey run in Switzerland at the end of October 2020, found that only 49% were prepared to take a Covid-19 vaccine, a percentage significantly lower than the 62% recorded in a similar survey in April 2020. Of the other 51%, 25% said they would not take a vaccine for Covid-19 and 26% said they did not know whether they...

Switzerland ranks well on flexible working and good digital connections that allow people to work from home. Keystone / Jean-christophe Bott Switzerland is among the countries best equipped to withstand the effects of the global pandemic, although no nation has emerged unscathed, according to the World Economic Forum (WEF). The Alpine country does well on several of the indicators used in a WEF report released Wednesday in Geneva. Replacing its usual annual Global...

Speaking to broadcaster RTS, Swiss health minister Alain Berset said the pandemic was under control and that it currently made no sense to declare an extraordinary situation, a provision in Swiss law on managing infectious diseases that allows the Federal Council to take charge of the situation over and above cantonal governments. Declaring an extraordinary situation would be pointless right now, said Berset. We currently have all the tools we need to act and we must...