Politics are fascinating. The president of the federal council, Guy Parmelin, and our finance minister, Ueli Maurer, are both members of the right wing SVP political party; they were behind the motion to stop Covid-19 tests from being given free as of October 1st going against the advice of Alain Berset, our health minister. They cited financial reasons for doing so: why should tax payers pay for people not wanting to get vaccinated and therefore requiring tests? However the SVP, their own party, has filed a motion to reverse this decision and the motion is gaining traction in parliament. The reasoning? 51% of SVP members are not vaccinated and do not wish to be. So will their desire to remain popular within their own party win over their wish to keep taxes low? We shall probably find out by the end of this week.
Right now tests remain free until October 1st and this means that all testing centres are overrun with people wanting to get their test so that they may go out in the evening or on the weekend. Tourists also make up part of the people having tests done as many have been vaccinated but their certificates and/or vaccines are not recognised here.
It looks as if asylum seekers will need to hand over their mobile phones and laptops when they arrive in the country so that the migration officers can track their movements since fleeing their home country and verify their identities. Warnings that this did not work when Germany tried to implement this verification method seemingly fell on deaf ears.
If you bought shares in the Swiss shoe company On, you would have been smiling yesterday as the company went on the stock market in New York and shares sold at 24 dollars a share, putting the value of the company at 7.3 billion dollars. Roger Federer who is a (small) share holder just got a lot richer as did the five company owners.
