When Swiss authorities closed the nation’s ski runs in mid-March, two days after the World Health Organisation declared a pandemic, the coronavirus was already ripping through the chic resort of Verbier.
A longtime destination of Europe’s jet set for off-piste skiing and apres-ski high life, Verbier’s packed gondola lifts and bars made it the perfect incubator for Covid-19. Even after the lifts closed, vacationers and seasonal workers partied one last time before heading home.
“It’s a perfect opportunity to spread — it’s a virus heaven,” said Corinne Cohen, a doctor at a clinic close to the resort. At one medical practice in Verbier, 80 per cent of patients tested positive for Covid-19.
Dr Cohen and other physicians called for Verbier to be quarantined. The Swiss government demurred, saying that isolating the resort wouldn’t limit the spread of Covid-19.
That decision increased scrutiny of Switzerland’s approach, which was criticised for initially prioritising the economy and individual liberties over containment. Those tensions also illustrate the challenge of co-ordinating a pandemic response across borders with four other major European nations.
While the WHO is based in Geneva, Swiss authorities were slow to embrace its recommendations on contact tracing and isolation, and ramped up testing only in recent weeks.
“This is the host country of the WHO and the host country initially did not follow WHO advice,” said Annelies Wilder-Smith, a professor of emerging infectious diseases at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine who lives in Switzerland.
After Italy became the pandemic’s centre, Switzerland initially kept open the 740-kilometre frontier with its southern neighbour, partly because the Swiss canton of Ticino relies on about 70,000 cross-border Italian workers to power its economy. Now Ticino has Switzerland’s highest infection rate.
When WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called in mid-March for countries to “test, test, test,” Daniel Koch, head of communicable diseases at the Swiss Federal Office of Public Health said such an approach was no longer appropriate for the country.
While most Swiss people were happy with the official response, 42 per cent wanted stronger measures, a poll in March by the Sotomo Research Institute showed.
Countries like Singapore and South Korea invested heavily in strategies to combat epidemics after experiencing the virus outbreaks of SARS in 2003 and MERS in 2015. Others, such as Italy or Switzerland, were caught less prepared, according to Didier Trono, a professor of virology and genetics at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne. Fears of ruining the economy by overreacting also played a role, as they did in the US and UK.
“Switzerland doesn’t stand out as the bad person in the class,” Mr Trono said. “Generally speaking, highly democratic modes of functioning are also not best suited in these situations, where blitzkrieg-like approaches are needed.”
Still, the Swiss implementation of social distancing has been exemplary, said Ms Wilder-Smith, while the government has incrementally adopted WHO advice. Where the country still lags behind is on capacity for “liberal testing, and more contact tracing,” she said.
Switzerland now has one of the highest per capita testing rates in the world, though the focus remains on risk groups. The government has banned gatherings of more than five people, but the strict lockdowns imposed in neighboring Italy and France aren’t in place.
The epidemic started in many places at the same time in Switzerland, complicating a systematic containment, Mr Trono said. “Now there are far too many fires everywhere, and we’re past being able to contain it here, here and here.”
Surveillance must go beyond Alpine virus hotspots, such as Verbier and the Austrian ski resort of Ischgl, from which tourists spread Covid-19 across Europe. That imperative is running up against pressure from lawmakers and businesses to reopen the Swiss economy as industries from gold refining to tourism suffer.
For now, the government agrees with the WHO that it’s too soon to relax restrictions, which have been extended until April 26.
“As soon as the trend of new infections declines sharply we can say the epidemic wave is declining and will continue to decline,” said Mr Koch, the Swiss government’s coronavirus czar. “But it’s still a little too early to make that call.”
It will also be important over the coming weeks to use antibody tests to determine what fraction of the population has already been exposed, according to Mr Trono.
“Once we have determined whether the presence of antibodies indicates resistance to further infection, we will additionally know who can go back to work without risk to themselves or others,” he said. “That may allow some precision de-confinement.”
As governments look for exit strategies, the WHO is stressing the continuing need for testing, isolation and contact tracing.
“Lockdowns will slow the virus, but they won’t stop it,” Bruce Aylward, senior adviser to the WHO’s director-general, said on Wednesday. “They provide a window to prepare for the post-lockdown reality.”
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SPECS
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First Person
Richard Flanagan
Chatto & Windus
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: HyperSpace
Started: 2020
Founders: Alexander Heller, Rama Allen and Desi Gonzalez
Based: Dubai, UAE
Sector: Entertainment
Number of staff: 210
Investment raised: $75 million from investors including Galaxy Interactive, Riyadh Season, Sega Ventures and Apis Venture Partners
Tips to stay safe during hot weather
- Stay hydrated: Drink plenty of fluids, especially water. Avoid alcohol and caffeine, which can increase dehydration.
- Seek cool environments: Use air conditioning, fans, or visit community spaces with climate control.
- Limit outdoor activities: Avoid strenuous activity during peak heat. If outside, seek shade and wear a wide-brimmed hat.
- Dress appropriately: Wear lightweight, loose and light-coloured clothing to facilitate heat loss.
- Check on vulnerable people: Regularly check in on elderly neighbours, young children and those with health conditions.
- Home adaptations: Use blinds or curtains to block sunlight, avoid using ovens or stoves, and ventilate living spaces during cooler hours.
- Recognise heat illness: Learn the signs of heat exhaustion and heat stroke (dizziness, confusion, rapid pulse, nausea), and seek medical attention if symptoms occur.
F1 The Movie
Starring: Brad Pitt, Damson Idris, Kerry Condon, Javier Bardem
Director: Joseph Kosinski
Rating: 4/5
SPECS
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Sinopharm vaccine explained
The Sinopharm vaccine was created using techniques that have been around for decades.
“This is an inactivated vaccine. Simply what it means is that the virus is taken, cultured and inactivated," said Dr Nawal Al Kaabi, chair of the UAE's National Covid-19 Clinical Management Committee.
"What is left is a skeleton of the virus so it looks like a virus, but it is not live."
This is then injected into the body.
"The body will recognise it and form antibodies but because it is inactive, we will need more than one dose. The body will not develop immunity with one dose," she said.
"You have to be exposed more than one time to what we call the antigen."
The vaccine should offer protection for at least months, but no one knows how long beyond that.
Dr Al Kaabi said early vaccine volunteers in China were given shots last spring and still have antibodies today.
“Since it is inactivated, it will not last forever," she said.
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
Pharaoh's curse
British aristocrat Lord Carnarvon, who funded the expedition to find the Tutankhamun tomb, died in a Cairo hotel four months after the crypt was opened.
He had been in poor health for many years after a car crash, and a mosquito bite made worse by a shaving cut led to blood poisoning and pneumonia.
Reports at the time said Lord Carnarvon suffered from “pain as the inflammation affected the nasal passages and eyes”.
Decades later, scientists contended he had died of aspergillosis after inhaling spores of the fungus aspergillus in the tomb, which can lie dormant for months. The fact several others who entered were also found dead withiin a short time led to the myth of the curse.
Company profile
Date started: 2015
Founder: John Tsioris and Ioanna Angelidaki
Based: Dubai
Sector: Online grocery delivery
Staff: 200
Funding: Undisclosed, but investors include the Jabbar Internet Group and Venture Friends
Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
The National's picks
4.35pm: Tilal Al Khalediah
5.10pm: Continous
5.45pm: Raging Torrent
6.20pm: West Acre
7pm: Flood Zone
7.40pm: Straight No Chaser
8.15pm: Romantic Warrior
8.50pm: Calandogan
9.30pm: Forever Young
Sri Lanka-India Test series schedule
- 1st Test India won by 304 runs at Galle
- 2nd Test India won by innings and 53 runs at Colombo
- 3rd Test August 12-16 at Pallekele
2025 Fifa Club World Cup groups
Group A: Palmeiras, Porto, Al Ahly, Inter Miami.
Group B: Paris Saint-Germain, Atletico Madrid, Botafogo, Seattle.
Group C: Bayern Munich, Auckland City, Boca Juniors, Benfica.
Group D: Flamengo, ES Tunis, Chelsea, Leon.
Group E: River Plate, Urawa, Monterrey, Inter Milan.
Group F: Fluminense, Borussia Dortmund, Ulsan, Mamelodi Sundowns.
Group G: Manchester City, Wydad, Al Ain, Juventus.
Group H: Real Madrid, Al Hilal, Pachuca, Salzburg.
The specs
- Engine: 3.9-litre twin-turbo V8
- Power: 640hp
- Torque: 760nm
- On sale: 2026
- Price: Not announced yet
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THE CLOWN OF GAZA
Director: Abdulrahman Sabbah
Starring: Alaa Meqdad
Rating: 4/5
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