Yeah but now the Henny Penny types are already worrying about the second wave.

Time to open up and face the inevitable.

Marton, we're going in endless circular arguments with users who should have banned already. At least temporarily.

I agree, Switzerland is one of the better cases. But mistakes were still made here (Italian border)

I dunno, I think we've got to give the scientists a chance for a vaccine. If it's not here on at least on the horizon after the inevitable winter second wave then just open up and what happens happens. Months like this I can take, but not years.

Let me remind you of Italy, where people kept made fun of the lockdown and kept trying to bypass it whichever way they could, for no other use than bypassing's sake.

Despite all the deaths. And the economic damage that resulted.

The population won't play along if they don't see the need. Sad as it is, that won't happen without a certain amount of proof.

Besides that:
Wudda kudda shudda

More than two thirds of the employees of Geneva's university hospital (HUG) are of French origin(numbers from 2018), roughly 40% are crossborder commuters (including some with Swiss nationality).

There's no reason to think that the situation in Ticino is significantly different. Closing the border would have killed the health industry in exactly those areas that got hit the hardest. Talk about hacking your own legs and arms off.

Do I need to mention that the reference lab for the coronavirus tests is also part of HUG? Without reference lab you can't rely on the test results.

Perhaps next time you think before you post.

Very rude. It only serves to make you look ignorant and aggressive (even if you are right), and i'm sure you are much better than that. There's never an excuse for meanness.

The borders are being monitored atm, and people being turned back. I don't see why people couldn't be allowed through only if they were health workers.

Just a quicky how many countries are including Care home deaths in their daily tally now ?
and are any other governments ( other than the UK ) including Care Home infections and
deaths as well as Hospital infections and deaths in these totals now ?

plexiglass industry is the real winner these days...

But I thought you are a #metoo fan

You do know the majority of coronavirus infected people are asymptomatic

I was pretty sure you didn't intend to make the complement you made in the first version. And the second.
Italy and France would reciprocate immediately. France intended to order their health workers stay home already, IIRC around the end of March, without action from the Swiss side. It took major intervention to keep that from happening.

Now imagine what would happen in Geneva, Vaud and Ticino if the hospitals became dysfunctional. Even now, with hospital cases there down by perhaps 70%.

Again, think before you type. I'm out of this conversation.

Sounds like a conspiracy theory in the making.

Only a small percentage of the 70000 Italian cross-border commuters are health care workers. There would've been no problem allowing only them to cross, but not the other tens of thousands of Lombardy residents. What was the point anyway, since pretty quickly the businesses they worked at had to cease operation?

Will come out at some point but hasn’t yet at a large scale.

There was brief mention yesterday that in one Swiss canton, all except one deaths (granted overall it was only 12), occurred in the same care home.

I expect many more of such clusters to have happened, in Switzerland and elsewhere.

Sweden certainly was 100% honest in this respect by saying: we didn’t protect care homes quickly enough.

On another note, the Swiss parliament had a post-session party yesterday for some 50-100 folks. Bit of a water-wine situation going on there...

The death rate is the highest among the elderly and many of them live in care homes.
How do Switzerland treat their elders in the care homes if they suspect that one of them has Corona?
Do the people treating the elderly have any protective gear? to minimize the risk of spreading COVID-19?

...and how long before Italy retaliated and decided to stop Italian health workers crossing the border and getting them to work in Italy? Could we even risk that? As Urs wrote this was a very real risk on the French border.

Well if entire populations can be quarantined and locked into their apartments, I’m sure there’s ways to quarantine and isolate individuals in certain defined spaces. So probably stay in room, don’t spend time in communal areas, food getting delivered, maybe some fresh air with a carer, but no other people. That’d be my guess.

The protective gear for staff is or can be the same as for hospital staff. By now they’re all wearing that anyway.

SiL works in one and all resident-facing workers had protective gear (kitchen staff not but there not needed..2m rule had to be observed). Visits were completely banned until last Monday, now they are allowed with 2m distancing.

Not sure what the protocol was if an infection happened as so far they haven't had one.