Gieri Cavelty, managing editor of SonntagsBlick.
Gieri CaveltyEditor-in-chief of the SonntagsBlick
First the RS virus, now the flu: Half of Switzerland lies flat, hospitals report lack of beds and staff. Of course, the situation cannot be compared to Corona. Hospitals are currently working at full capacity also because they are carrying out surgeries that had to be postponed during the pandemic, so-called elective surgeries. However, it is also true that the situation would be less precarious if we had learned some things from the pandemic.
The Federal Office of Public Health is currently working on a revision of the Epidemics Act. According to reports, BAG lawyers have the courage to address burning issues such as mandatory vaccination for health care workers. Against this background, it becomes clear why Alain Berset would have wanted to change departments… If the bill were to be presented to the public in the spring as planned, emotions would run high again.
The coronavirus vaccination has largely eliminated the fear, and it is more than worrying how many people try to downplay this scientific finding in the aftermath. At the same time, it needs to be carefully considered whether, in the event of the next pandemic, it is a good idea to have compulsory vaccination only for healthcare workers. In any case, such a law carries the risk of further increasing the shortage of nursing staff.
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At the same time, there are effective and easily implemented lessons from the pandemic that are completely ignored by the authorities. Corona has brought great suffering to our country. However, Corona was also an impressive example of what the simplest preventive measures can achieve: wearing FFP2 masks and washing your hands regularly have been shown to slow the spread of all respiratory viruses. When the authorities were able to give Corona the green light in the spring, they should have built on this success. Why hasn’t the federal government launched a campaign to maintain hand hygiene? For example with the message: Covid is done – we stay clean anyway! After all, it is extremely rare for corona viruses to become infected through contact with objects, whereas such smear infections are much more common with influenza and the RS virus. It was right to promote handwashing in schools during the pandemic – it would be even more right now.
What could have also prevented a professional post-corona information campaign: Anyone who coughs, sneezes and spits today is having a corona test. If the outcome is negative, many feel they can date people without precautions. This behavior is probably one of the reasons why the flu season starts earlier this year than in other years.
Our country has achieved convincing success with prevention work. Corona is one example, HIV another. Switzerland’s AIDS campaigns were once regarded as exemplary throughout the world. Anyone interested in the topic can view the posters and commercials for 35 years on the FOPH website. You will obviously notice that two videos from the early days are missing. Although completely harmless, they can no longer be accessed directly on the FOPH portal. Reason: There’s supposedly too much bare skin to see.
When asked by SonntagsBlick, the BAG explained this embarrassing censorship with the age regulations of the YouTube video platform. If you wanted to be effective, you could of course have put the shorts on the website without the help of Youtube. As it stands, however, this episode is testament to the federal government’s current disturbed relationship to effective prevention efforts.
