Since June the city of Lucerne along with 7 other cities have been lobbying the government to allow them to take asylum seekers directly from the island of Lesbos, where the camp of Moria is horribly overcrowded. Since the fire broke out in the camp virtually destroying it, the situation there has got even worse and the cities are reiterating their willingness to take in asylum seekers. However the government seems unwilling to find the legal means to help an EU country to deal with this issue, much to the frustration of the cities and the help organisations. They say that the order has to come directly from the EU and asylum seekers should apply in their countries for asylum, seemingly disregarding the fact that these people are usually fleeing from opression and war.
This week the national parliament resumed and its first point of order was to grant a 770 million franc credit to help deal with the corona crisis. Roughly a third of this will go towards paying for the ever more frequent testing of the population, another third will go towards helping the SBB deal with the lack of income from travellers, the rest will go towards smaller credits (such as buying 6000 tons of ethanol to produce disinfectant).
Switzerland is counting on a total cost of 31 billion francs towards paying to deal with the pandemic, so far 18 billion have been used.
Several road accidents took place yesterday, one of which was between a cyclist and a car. The accident took place around 8 in the morning between Eichwaldstrasse and Obergrundstrasse, the car was a light colour and driven by a woman with long brown hair, aged between 35 and 40 and who spoke high german. She fled the scene without leaving any information and the police are looking for any witnesses who could help them track her down. The cyclist had to be treated for her wounds.
