The new Swiss President Guy Parmelin has admitted that the government has made mistakes in managing the coronavirus pandemic. “Between July and September we underestimated the situation,” said the politician of the Swiss People’s Party (SVP) of the newspaper “SonntagsBlick”. “We thought we could master the virus. I thought it was a long way off, „added the 61-year-old.
In December in particular, coordination between the cantons was “not always easy,” admitted Parmelin. In the Federal Council, French-speaking and German-speaking cantons disagreed on whether the measures to counter the spread of the virus should be stepped up. Parmelin described the compromise found as a “weighing of interests between health, economy and people’s psyche. It’s not all black and white, ”he explained.
While Switzerland was only moderately hit by the first wave of infections, the number of coronavirus infections skyrocketed from autumn. For weeks, the Swiss Confederation, with a population of 8.6 million, has been reporting more than 4,000 new infections per day. Vaccinations against the virus have begun at a slow pace in several cantons.
