The number of Covid 19 diseases in Switzerland and Liechtenstein continues to rise. According to Daniel Koch from the BAG, the situation seems to have remained stable over the weekend. The increase is somewhat the same as in the past few days. “This is certainly a first small sign that the measures are taking effect,” said Koch. But it was too early to draw a conclusion. The question of when the peak of the epidemic could be reached cannot be answered yet.
But the population understood what it was about. That was the result of a survey. You seem to stick to the measures. Now it was important to remain steadfast over the Easter days.
No obligation to wear a mask
Although the measures are well followed, there are always new infections. According to Koch, it is unclear where exactly those affected are infected. Even if people behaved correctly, it could happen. Even with very drastic measures, that would not go to zero, said Koch. “In a free society there are always contacts where viruses are transmitted.”
There is currently no obligation to wear a mask as in Austria. But that doesn’t mean that such a thing will never be ordered, said Koch. At the moment there aren’t enough masks in Switzerland anyway. In the medical field alone, between one and two million masks are currently used per day.
Koch also commented on the admission of patients from abroad. This is possible without the Swiss system running the risk of being overloaded. Switzerland has a large number of nursing staff and medical staff from abroad that keep the Swiss hospitals running.
Around 31,850 loans to companies were spoken
To deal with the corona crisis, banks in Switzerland have already issued around 31,850 loans. This means that around a third of the CHF 20 billion that SMEs have made available in the form of guarantees to deal with the Corona crisis has been allocated.
The question of whether the amount will be increased may now become an issue faster than planned, said Erik Jakob, head of the Directorate for Promotion of Locations at the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (Seco) on Monday in front of the media in Bern. The finance department is in charge. Finance minister Ueli Maurer had already said at an earlier media conference that an increase could not be ruled out.
A total of CHF 6.6 billion has been awarded in loan agreements, and an average loan of CHF 207,000 has been granted. Erik Jakob has not yet received full applications for loan applications of more than half a million Swiss francs. There were individual applications, which were not complete or which annexes were missing.
Not yet a solution for all self-employed people
There is still no solution for self-employed people who are only “secondary” affected by measures, said Jakob. These questions are currently being resolved. The other systems should have started up first. It is also challenging to find a clean solution for all self-employed people. The task lies with the directorate for work.
The federal safety net means in particular self-employed persons without their own company, freelancers or those who make a contribution to family income through irregular work.
Erik Jakob further said at the media conference that applications for short-time work would increase massively faster than the number of unemployed. That was also the aim of this measure for short-time work compensation. Ticino is the frontrunner in registrations for short-time work. Short-time work has already been registered for almost 40 percent of the workforce, said Jakob. The Swiss-wide average is 15.6 percent.
According to Jakob, 132,660 unemployed are currently registered, which corresponds to an unemployment rate of 2.9 percent. There are currently 208,527 job seekers.
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