In the spirit that the show must go on, yesterday saw the opening of “The Circle” next to the Zürich airport. This 180 000 m2 (that’s the size of 21 football fields) new complex, sees itself as a deluxe lifestyle destination offering everything from shops, restaurants & bars to offices, a fitness centre and even a hospital. The construction of the complex has taken 5 years and cost billions of francs. The opening timing is obviously poor for many reasons but this doesn’t seem to have deterred renters with several large companies planning to move their headquarters there next year. Only time will tell whether this was visionary or a relic of a bygone era where people actually used to travel, meet and work in close proximity to one another…
As of today the canton of Tessin has reinstated restrictions for people wishing to go shopping in Italy or to visit relatives there and vice-versa. Since Italy has put stricter restrictions in place a lot of Italians have been crossing the border into Switzerland to do their shopping and eat out here.
Although the daily figure of infections is still very high (over 10 000 a day), the growth of numbers seem to be slowing down. We are now only at 13% more cases than last week, meaning that our doubling rate is also slowing down and our R rate has gone down to 1.11 (that’s the number of people who get further infected by a covid-19 patient).
Still the hospitals are starting to feel the pressure and the number of daily deaths due to the virus continue to be high (around 60 a day, that’s more than at the highest point in the spring). The daily average of infections is highest in the cantons of Vaud and Geneva (over 1000 cases a day). Lucerne is at 253 cases a day, Obwalden, Uri and Appenzell are at the bottom of the league as all come in at around 15 new cases a day.
Let’s all keep to the rules and we might avoid a lockdown after all.
PS: remember that no trains will depart from the main station this weekend. Click here for the details.
