Swiss health official: hospitals can cope with current Covid surge

Switzerland’s autumn 2022 Covid vaccination campaign is mainly aimed at over-65-year-olds and those with pre-existing health conditions. ¬©ti-press

Rudolf Hauri, president of the cantonal doctor’s association, has said that while the current autumn wave may not yet have peaked, he is not expecting the same problems as in the past years.

In an interview published by Swiss newspaper Blick on Wednesday, Hauri said there were “currently no indications that we are heading for a massive overload [of hospitals]”. He expects fewer serious cases and fewer Covid patients to end up in intensive care, mainly due to the high rate of immunity among the population, estimated at 97%.

However, Hauri warned that the situation could yet become more serious, especially since coronavirus case numbers are likely to be accompanied by a strong wave of flu cases this winter. Given the staffing shortages in hospitals, this could bring about another stress test for the country’s healthcare system, he said.

On Tuesday, after weeks of rising numbers, the Federal Office for Public Health (FOPH) reported a total of 30,305 new Covid-19 cases for the previous seven days – a slump of 18% on last week. New hospitalisations also went down. Around 9% of intensive care beds are currently occupied by Covid-19 patients.

Hauri however warned against seeing this as the end of the current wave – an interpretation would only be possible around a fortnight from now, he said. He also said the extremely high test positivity rates mean the real number of new infections could still be much higher than reported – perhaps more than 20,000 per day.