After the summer break, Swiss schools see a spike in Covid cases

Schools in German-speaking Switzerland registered a spike in the number of people infected with the coronavirus after the summer vacations.

Switzerland is being hit by a fourth wave of the coronavirus. Keystone / Salvatore Di Nolfi

The weekly SonntagsZeitung conducted a survey of the 13 German-speaking cantons and found almost all registered a significant uptick in cases.

In the canton of Bern, there have been around six times more positive cases since the start of the school year than before the summer vacations, according to the Swiss capital’s health directorate.

In the canton of Zurich, Switzerland’s financial hub, the number of infected schoolchildren hit a record high last week. Contact tracing identified 90 so-called super spreader events leading to viral transmission among a high number of people.

Cases were also in the rise in the northern canton of Basel Land and Solothurn in the northwest, the Sunday weekly noted. The educational department of central canton Schwyz documented a ten-fold increase in Covid cases after the summer holidays and more than 450 students have been quarantined.

Rudolf Hauri, president of the Association of Cantonal Physicians Switzerland, blamed travellers returning to Switzerland for the rise in coronavirus cases across Swiss classrooms.

Health measures in schools, like social distancing, handwashing, and ventilating have remained in place for the new term. Older pupils are no longer generally required to wear masks although cantons retain the power to decide otherwise.