Tag Archives: Editor’s Choice

On 27 May 2021, the UK was added Switzerland’s list of risk countries. This means that anyone arriving in Switzerland from the UK from 6pm on Thursday must quarantine upon arrival, with a few exceptions. © Tommy Beattie | Dreamstime.com The UK was added to the Federal Office of Public Health’s (FOPH) list of countries with a worrying variant, alongside Brazil, Canada, India, Nepal and South Africa. A number of other countries and regions are listed because of...

The total number of hours worked in Switzerland in 2020 dropped by nearly 4% compared to 2019, announced the Federal Statistical Office this week. © Thanasak Boonchoong | Dreamstime.comIn a year marked by the Covid-19 pandemic total hours worked in Switzerland dropped by nearly 300 million or 3.7% compared to the previous year. In 2019, 7.9 billion hours of work were clocked up in Switzerland. In 2020, this figure fell to 7.6 billion. Unsurprisingly, the biggest falls in hours...

A recent survey of expats presents Switzerland as a double edged sword. The survey, which covers 59 nations, ranks Switzerland near the top on quality of life but near the bottom on cost. © Bartolomiej Pietrzyk | Dreamstime.comIn the ranking by InterNations, Switzerland is listed 30 out of 59 countries overall for its attractiveness to expats. However, its score contains both bright and a dark spots. On quality of life, Switzerland ranked 9th. 99% of those surveyed said they were happy...

Initially, in Switzerland, only those who have been vaccinated will get a Covid certificate. Those who have received a negative test result or have been infected and recovered will have to wait, according to a report in the TagesAnzeiger. This information was later confirmed by the Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH), according to RTS. © Chaiyan Anuwatmongkonchai | Dreamstime.com - Click to enlarge For those who have been vaccinated, Covid certificates will be...

Switzerland continues to shift towards organic farming. Between 2000 and 2020, the number of organic farms has risen by 54%. In 2020, the number rose 3.8%. © Iwan Zeller | Dreamstime.comOrganic farms now make up 15.3% of total farms in Switzerland, up from 6.9% 20 years ago. In 2000, there were 4,902 organic farms. By 2020, the number had risen 54% to 7,561. The rise in organic farms stands in contrast to a backdrop of declining farm numbers. From 2000 to 2020, the...

Switzerland and the EU have been working at failing to agree on a new agreement on Switzerland’s relationship with the EU for sometime now. One point of negotiating leverage used by Switzerland is that Swiss voters would reject the deal proposed by the EU in a referendum. However, a recent poll suggests that might not be true. © Alexander Filon | Dreamstime.comA recent poll run by gfs.bern found that 64% of a sample of voters were either supportive (15%) or fairly supportive (49%) of the...

Recent data show that Swiss hotels and restaurants shed 40,000 jobs in 2020 as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, with restaurants reliant on business travel hit the hardest, according to RTS. © Jan Gajdosik | Dreamstime.comThese figures do not include the effects of the pandemic beyond the end of 2020 and therefore exclude the impact of the pandemic in 2021. Casimir Platzer, president of GastroSuisse, told newspapers in German-speaking Switzerland, that an additional 10,000 jobs...

Those with teenagers wishing for the greater travel freedom likely to come with proof of vaccination may have cause for hope. On 7 May 2021, Pfizer submitted an authorisation application to Swissmedic, Switzerland’s drug approval agency, for use of its vaccine against Covid-19 on those aged 12 to 15 years old. © Jovanmandic | Dreamstime.com - Click to enlarge The application asks for the authorisation of the vaccine, which is currently being used on adults in...

With five weeks to go before Swiss vote on two initiatives aimed at drastically cutting the use of pesticides, more than 50% appear to be in favour of both initiatives, according to RTS. © Dusan Kostic | Dreamstime.comOne of these initiatives, the clean drinking water initiative, aims to tie access to Switzerland’s generous farm subsidies to forgoing pesticide (and antibiotic) use. The second aims to ban the use of synthetic pesticide use more broadly after a 10 year...

This week, saw 10,639 new Covid-19 cases in Switzerland, down 21% from a week before (13,465) continuing the slow down in growth of new numbers experienced last week (-5%). The 7-day average is currently 1,519. “We have good reasons to be optimistic,” said Patrick Mathys, head of the Swiss National COVID-19 Science Task Force at a press conference in Bern on Wednesday. According to Mathys, there is a good chance that this downward trend will continue over the next...