Starting today (nearly) all PCR and quick tests will be free regardless of whether you have symptoms or not. This is in accordance with the government’s new strategy to test, test, test. The only exception? Test required for travelling purposes. We wrote about where to have these done here.
On Friday the government announced which restrictions they hope to ease (with the approval of the cantons) on March 22nd. Up to 10 people would be allowed to meet in private homes, sport and cultural events with a small audience would be allowed and restaurant terraces would be able to reopen. This is if the four following conditions are met: R rate 1 or lower, positivite test rate 5% or less, number of cases less than on March 1st, and no more than 250 patients with covid in ICUs. Currently 3 out of the 4 criterias are not met, we will know this coming Friday whether the restrictions will be lifted or not.
Today the nationsl parliament will be debating what to do about the national pension system. No changes to it have been approved in the past 26 years and at this rate it will go bankrupt by 2033/34. Some ideas that will be examined in order to fill the coffers for coming generations of pensioners are: raising the VAT, raising the retirement age for women from 64 to 65 or the general retirement age being brought up to 68. It promises to be a heated debate and more likely than not, the people will be asked to approve any decision being made.
A 21 year old hacker from Lucerne is on the FBI’s radar for having hacked into company security systems in the US. Not only were all of his compters seized but so were the ones he kept at his parents’ home. Strangely though, he is the one who gave the alarm that he had successfully hacked into these security systems. An innovative way of getting your CV as a computer expert out there?
We survived both storm Klaus and Luis, now we can look forward to cold temperatures and snowy showers until the weekend.
