This one may surprise you: Switzerland is not doing well in the COVID-19 pandemic
It surprised me. But when I thought about it for a moment and read this article, it made perfect sense. After all, Switzerland borders on Italy – specifically, northern Italy, the center of the problem in that country. And tourism is big business in Switzerland:
The country is a tourism and trucking crossroads in one of the business hearts of Europe. As well as the two cantons of Svizzera Italiana, which border Lombardy, the centre of the Italian pandemic, there are 68,000 Italian citizens who until a few days ago crossed the frontier into Switzerland from Lombardy every morning to work, returning home at nightfall.
What virtually no checks were carried out previously, all Switzerland’s land borders with Italy, Germany, Austria and France have now been sealed except to Swiss citizens and 16,000 people have been turned back when trying to enter.
One Europe was a dream, but now the nations of Europe are realizing there’s a role for border control after all.
How bad is it in Switzerland? Not so bad when you first glance at the statistics. You see they have 9877 cases and have had 122 deaths for a case fatality rate of 1.24%. But what you don’t see – and what you don’t see on almost all the charts that total deaths per country – are numbers adjusted for differences in population. [UPDATE: Just a few minutes after I published this, a reader informed me that those statistics have been added to the site. I didn’t notice them when I wrote the post because I use a large font on my screen and the far right-hand column – which is where these numbers appear – was cut off from view and I wasn’t even aware of that. So I’ve used their comparative figures now on that.] Switzerland has a population of about 8.57 million people, and its death rate per million people is listed as 14. For comparison, the population of the US is about 38 times bigger, and our death total so far is 625 (case fatality rate 1.29%), but our death rate per million is 2.
All of these numbers are in constant flux, of course, so it’s hard to conclude much of anything except that the Swiss are indeed having a significant problem that isn’t immediately apparent when you look at the charts alone.
There was a Swiss exchange student in my high school class going on sixty years ago. I worked with a Swiss student in a college organization. So I’ve been interested, modestly. Switzerland gives off a vibe of competent and well off. Great scenery.
Digging into things also led to that conclusion. But there were other items which gave a flavor of the corporate state. Hard to say for sure.
But in any event, the idea that the Swiss were unable to manage this is not in character with their general self-presentation. It’s a surprise.
It’s not that they don’t have the resources. It’s….who knows?
i was born there ( my parents were students from NYC). the Switzerland of 60 years ago is no longer Switzerland. Graffiti everywhere, islamonazis taking over Geneva. I guess that’s the price you pay for being nazi collaborators. Karma’s a bitch
Need age-adjusted Wuhan virus death rates.
It is the elderly who are most vulnerable, having accumulated chronic problems along the way, like diabetes and COPD.
In terms of median age, none of the Western European countries are young. Germany’s 47.1, Switzerland 42.4. When you don’t make babies, you secular progressives….
USA is signif younger still at 38.1. But for how much longer? If the Democrats take over, and use QALY as the reason to deny care and snuff out the geezers, the number will shift lower! And the survivors will need less care!
It is interesting to look at the contagion map of the US and see the little dots following the highways in some places. Smallpox also spread in the the present US along trade routes from Mexico. It is no surprise that Switzerland with open borders and hordes of tourists should have a problem.
My girlfriend lives there in the French part of Switzerland. She’s caught in their nation-wide lock-down where she’s not allowed to shop for food and meds because she’s over 65 (volunteers bring them to her door). Their per capita infection rate is now equal to Italy’s, and I think they’ll exceed it tomorrow. But their death rate for those infected with the disease is comparable to ours (1.2-1.3%). Fortunately, their testing is advancing pretty well – she’s been sick for a week but tested negative for the virus, thank God. Her son is a doctor in a Lausanne hospital fighting this disease full tilt. Her nephew just got mobilized into their civilian services corps to help deal with the situation. But people are in good spirits – each night at 9 everyone goes out on their balcony or door step and sings, claps, plays instruments, bangs pots, yells for a couple minutes as a gesture of “solidarity”.
Jerry from Boston said,
“But people are in good spirits – each night at 9 everyone goes out on their balcony or door step and sings, claps, plays instruments, bangs pots, yells for a couple minutes as a gesture of “solidarity”.”
Good for them! I love hearing these things. Despair is a sin and love to see people resist the temptation to give in.
It is still notable though that despite the case rate being just about as high as Italy’s, i. e. really really high, the fatality rate is only about 10% of Italy’s. Pretty high but not nearly the same disaster at least so far. I believe there is a lot to learn about why the disease takes different courses in different countries. I don’t think every place will have the same outcome as Italy and there are factors affecting that aside from “sheltering”.
Sadly, this tragedy in Spain does not entirely surprise me.
https://videos.whatfinger.com/2020/03/24/spanish-soldiers-discover-abandoned-retirement-homes-and-dead-in-mass-tragedy/
A friend of ours in Switzerland, in the Zurich area, is isolated in her flat and is really terrified. She says the same as this report — the trains were running from Italy into Switzerland long after the infection there took hold.
At least Right Wing Twitter seems to be calming down a little bit. I don’t know if it’s because they’re looking at New York or because they noticed the pushback to Trump just talking about opening the economy back up but the hysterical and paranoid edge to their rants has dulled.
Mike
The Swiss are VERY likely to have “plenty” of hospital beds, with the ability to have a large increase in ICU care, when needed.
And it looks like it will be needed. And the sick will get good Swiss care.
A lot more than would be getting sick had they locked down sooner.
Glenn read HuffPost about the ‘fashionable prezidentka’:
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/president-slovakia-coronavirus-mask_l_5e78d0b5c5b62f90bc4e9cfa
The masks, a bit for show perhaps, DO demonstrate the seriousness of the lockdown. Those without masks will be somewhat social outcasts.
Nature has a great gene chart showing some genetics of the Chinese Virus
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0820-9/figures/1
just for Artfldgr, and all other (of us many) interested.
Since swatch its been downhill…
they been fixing things there too
‘History proves them right’: Three decades on, Swiss women strike again for equality
and
What’s the story behind Switzerland’s feminist revolution?
and
The Disturbing Rise of ‘Femonationalism’
gets weirder the more yo dig
Switzerland backs China’s new Silk Road as Western allies twiddle their thumbs
they too imported many workers from another land and many others from other lands to make up for the lack of having their own kids…
same kinds of changes…
imported many workers… to make up for the lack of having their own kids
Planned parenthood? Dodo Dynasties? Diversity quotas?
I lived in Geneva for three years, so I have been watching the Swiss numbers all along. The biggest problem looks to be in Ticino, which is geographically almost an extension of Italy. I am saddened to see it, because Ticino—with its Alps and palm trees, happy Italian people and wonderful food, lakes and beautiful resort cities such as Locarno, and Swiss standards for engineering and sanitation—was just about heavenly. French-speaking Geneva, being surrounded by France, has the same problems as France. Basle is on the French border and has trouble. German-speaking Switzerland, like Germany and Austria, seems to be doing better.
The human geography seems to matter, although we can’t yet be sure why that is.
Jerry from Boston. Just to screw around with probability theory…. Did your girlfriend go to Michigan State University in the mid-late Sixties?
Lugano is a short trip from Lake Como and its statistics would further confirm the thesis in all likelihood.
Richard Aubrey. Wow! My late wife, who was also a Swiss national, WAS at MSU with her Swiss husband. He attended MSU for about a year and a half (around 1967-68). They then returned to Switzerland right after. Sounding familiar?
Chuck – the county map of Oklahoma (https://coronavirus.health.ok.gov/ ) which is near the bottom of the page, the affected counties are along I35 (n/s) , I44 (sw/ne) and I 40 (e/w). The I 35 pattern seems to continue into Texas and a bit into Kansas. The counties that are skipped probably are light on truck stops.
I don’t think we’ll have too many cases of C19 in the Oklahoman panhandle.
Jerry. The woman I’m thinking of was from Lausanne. Another coincidence is that I had dated an exchange student (AFS) from Winterthur in high school.
Anyway, the Lausanne connection was in the Judo Club. She threw a mean harai. If I have to say so myself.
At that age, I was pleased she asked me to teach her. Meant she figured I wasn’t going to grope her and that I looked as if I knew what I was doing. At that age, we young guys need all the validation we can get. I remembered that with a certain warmth or gratitude. At least, she must have figured I might ask her out and wouldn’t be a jerk if she turned me down. A very nice lady.
And that was 67-68. Our sensei was Jagoon Kim. Faculty sponsor Clint Burhans.
Did I mention something about screwing with probability theory?
Richard. Sorry, close call but she wasn’t ever into the martial arts. More into commercial arts such as clothing fabrication and design. But still, she WAS from Lausanne! Small world, hunh?
BTW, you still got that roundhouse kick?
Couldn’t have been. But still close. “into” martial arts might not include a weekly judo club meeting and workout. Three from Lausanne at MSU, though….
I preferred the knee as a target.
We had a side class we called “jiu jitsu” for style but it was scientific dirty fighting. I got into that pretty heavily, war coming on and all.
One place, which based upon their geographic location and economic/travel ties to China, should be in the thick of this is Taiwan, ROC!
But, their numbers are low: 235 cases, 2 deaths, 0.08 deaths per 1 million.
Outstanding!
Despite being “ostracized” by the most of the world, even by “world” organizations such as WHO (WHO does NOT allow Taiwan to be a member of WHO – because the Chinese Communist Party insists that it be that way), the folks in Taiwan have learned to hold their own. Someone should tell the folks at WHO that pathogens don’t care about politics.
Kudos to Taiwan – and may they continue to hold their own.