Tag Archives: Editor’s Choice

© Alexey Novikov | Dreamstime.com Switzerland’s health system is rated highly by the public, according to the latest survey conducted in eleven countries by the Commonwealth Fund Foundation. Every 3 years, the Foundation conducts a survey of the general population in eleven countries to investigate experiences of the health system. 88% of the 2,284 people surveyed across all of Switzerland rated the overall performance of Switzerland’s health system as good or very...

© Alexey Poprotskiy | Dreamstime.com On 9 December 2020, Switzerland’s federal government adopted a change to the rules on healthcare to make vaccination against the SARS-CoV-2 virus free to the public. The cost of vaccinations will be covered by health insurance, the cantons and Switzerland’s federal government. Early on in the pandemic in March 2020, the Swiss government decided the cost of testing should be borne by health insurance companies and patients....

Switzerland’s health system is rated highly by the public, according to the latest survey conducted in eleven countries by the Commonwealth Fund Foundation. © Alexey Novikov | Dreamstime.comEvery 3 years, the Foundation conducts a survey of the general population in eleven countries to investigate experiences of the health system. 88% of the 2,284 people surveyed across all of Switzerland rated the overall performance of Switzerland’s health system as good or very good. These results...

© Peter Moulton | Dreamstime.com Update: It appears rail connections between Italy and Switzerland will not be interrupted after Switzerland’s president and the Italian minister of transport spoke on Wednesday. Solutions have been identified to ensure compliance with Italy’s anti-COVID measures. Rail links are expected to gradually return to normal over the next few days, according to a report by RSI. The railway connections between Switzerland and Italy will not be...

On 8 December 2020, Switzerland’s Federal Council announced it was considering further restrictions starting from 12 December 2020 and running until 20 January 2021. The Federal Council announced that it plans to harmonise and reinforce measures recently introduced by the cantons. It will meet on 11 December 2020 and again on 18 December 2020 to decide on further measures to reduce the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, it said in a press release. The epidemiological...

Every three months the benchmark interest rate used to set Swiss rents is reviewed. If it goes down some renters can request a decrease in rent. This time it remained at 1.25%. © Sergei Razvodovskij | Dreamstime.comThe last time it dropped was March 2020 when it fell from 1.5% to 1.25%, its lowest level since the measure began in 2008. The rate is based on the average Swiss mortgage rate over three months. This rate is then rounded to the nearest 0.25%. On 30 September 2020 that rate...

By Edward Girardet For a nation that prides itself on being on the global forefront of new technologies and science, particularly health care, Switzerland has an astoundingly poor record for dealing with Covid-19. The Lake Geneva region, which borders locked-down France, ranks as one of the worst coronavirus hotspots in Europe. Many Swiss, too, act as if there is no pandemic by crowding into shopping malls or socialising without masks. And in an astounding Orwellian...

Over the third quarter of 2020, home prices in Switzerland rose by an average of 0.2%. However, the prices of some homes rose while others fell. © Sergey Dzyuba | Dreamstime.comAccording to figures published by Switzerland’s federal statistical office, the price of individual houses rose 1.1% while the price of apartments fell by 0.6%. The price rise for individual houses was particularly high in suburban areas near large cities (+2.6%) and in rural communes (+2.2%). Apartments in...

The SARS-CoV-2 virus has hit French-speaking Switzerland harder than the rest of Switzerland both before and since summer. 44% of Swiss Covid-19 deaths have occurred in the cantons of Valais, Vaud, Geneva, Fribourg and Neuchâtel, despite making up only 25% of the country’s population. Daily New Deaths in Switzerland, November 27 Source: worldometers.info - Click to enlarge At a recent press conference, Martin Ackermann, head of the Covid-19 scientific Task Force,...

Over the weekend, Switzerland averaged 3,250 new daily recorded cases (9,751 over 72 hours). This represents a significant drop from the daily peak of 10,128 cases reported on 5 November 2020. The 7-day moving average number of new cases in Switzerland is currently more than 40% below the peak around 2.5 weeks ago. Cases in Schweiz, November 24 Source: corona-data.ch - Click to enlarge At the same time Switzerland’s hospitals remain under pressure and the death...