Switzerland’s Covid-19 scientific taskforce chief says hospitals across the Alpine country could be swamped with new coronavirus cases in the next two or three weeks unless the situation improves.
“We estimate that the capacity limit in intensive care in hospitals will be reached between November 5-18 if nothing changes from the current situation,” Martin Ackermann told reporters in Bern on Friday. “We don’t have time to wait any longer.”
The number of new Covid-19 cases has risen sharply in recent days. A total of 6,634 new cases – a record – were reported by the Swiss health authorities on Friday.
They confirmed that the country was now more badly affected than its neighbours: it now has 495 cases per 100,000 inhabitants. Only France approaches these levels at 450 cases per 100,000.
On Friday, Ackermann said that hospitalisations were doubling week by week. The same goes for the number of intensive care cases and deaths due to Covid-19. Over the past 14 days 689 people were hospitalised, and 75 died.
Overall, there have now been more than 100,000 cases – 103,653 cases to be precise – since the start of the epidemic and 1,877 deaths.
Contact to a minimum
He urged people to keep their contact with others to a minimum, while the head of the association of cantonal doctors asked people to avoid “delicate situations”, by keeping to social distancing and avoid risky sports and leisure activities.
Testing and tracing capacity is stretched, with officials appealing to those who test positive to personally inform people with whom they have had contact.
Ackermann told reporters that Switzerland’s containment strategy was no longer working due to the high number of cases. For the virus reproduction rate to drop below 1 again, it is necessary to reduce professional and private contacts by half, he said.
Image Credit: Martin Ackermann as seen at a press conference in Bern last week – Keystone / Anthony Anex
Post by Amanda Scott, NA CEO. Follow her on twitter @tantriclens
Thanks to Heinz V. Hoenen. Follow him on twitter: @HeinzVHoenen
News
FedEx for your cells: this biological delivery service could treat disease
Researchers want to know why cells produce tiny packages called vesicles — and whether these bundles could be used for therapy. Graça Raposo was a young postdoc in the Netherlands in 1996 when she [...]
New study on the genetic magnetization of living bacteria shows great potential for biomedicine
Magnetic bacteria possess extraordinary capabilities due to the magnetic nanoparticles, the magnetosomes, which are concatenated inside their cells. A research team at the University of Bayreuth has now transferred all of the approximately 30 [...]
Ultrathin Nanotech Promises to Help Tackle Antibiotic Resistance
Researchers have invented a nano-thin superbug-slaying material that could one day be integrated into wound dressings and implants to prevent or heal bacterial infections. The innovation – which has undergone advanced pre-clinical trials – [...]
Researchers Discover New Mnemomic Networks in the Brain
The medial temporal lobe (MTL) houses the human memory system. Broadly, it contains the hippocampus, parahippocampal cortex, perirhinal cortex, and entorhinal cortex. “One big challenge in studying the MTL is its great anatomical variability [...]
The Surprising Origin of a Deadly Hospital Infection
C. diff might not originate from external transmission but rather from within the infected patient themselves. Hospital staff dedicate significant effort to safeguard patients from infections during their hospital stay. Through practices ranging from [...]
Google AI breakthrough – huge step in finding genes that cause diseases
Google says it has made a significant step in identifying disease-causing genes, which could help spot rare genetic disorders. A new model named AlphaMissense is able to confidently classify 89 per cent of all [...]
New Study: Everyday Pleasures Can Boost Cognitive Performance
MINDWATCH study reveals cognitive peaks with everyday pleasures. Listening to music and drinking coffee are the sorts of everyday pleasures that can impact a person’s brain activity in ways that improve cognitive performance, including [...]
Moderna reveals new highly targeted COVID-19 vaccine mRNA-1283
Moderna has developed a new and improved version of its COVID-19 vaccine. The unique formulation (mRNA-1283) reduces the vaccine's content from the full-length SARS-CoV-2 spike protein to a narrowly focused encoding of just two [...]
New nanotech weapon takes aim at hard-to-treat breast cancer
Breast cancer in its various forms affects more than 250,000 Americans a year. One particularly aggressive and hard-to-treat type is triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), which lacks specific receptors targeted by existing treatments. The rapid [...]
Scientists upcycle plastics into liquids that can store hydrogen energy
Scientists from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) have created a process that can upcycle most plastics into chemical ingredients useful for energy storage, using light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and a commercially available catalyst, all [...]
Yale Scientists Uncover How the Immune System Can Alter Our Behavior
The mere scent of seafood can severely sicken those allergic to it — and therefore they are more likely to avoid it. Similarly, individuals who experience food poisoning from a specific dish tend to [...]
Whirlwind Tech – The Future of Energy-Efficient Spintronics Computing
Researchers in Germany and Japan have been able to increase the diffusion of magnetic whirls, so-called skyrmions, by a factor of ten. In today’s world, our lives are unimaginable without computers. Up until now, [...]
Omicron’s Silver Lining: Significantly Lower Risk of Long COVID
Omicron infections have a lower risk of long COVID than earlier variants, according to a study analyzing data from 11,000 participants. The risk of developing long COVID is significantly lower following an infection with [...]
The Hidden Mechanism Connecting Diabetes and Cancer
Researchers have discovered that insulin resistance, typically linked with type 2 diabetes, is also present in cancer patients and can accelerate the spread of the disease. In the 1920s, scientists found that the urine [...]
Scientists Unveil Urea’s Secret Role in the Origin of Life
Scientists from ETH Zurich and the University of Geneva have developed a new technique that allows them to observe chemical reactions taking place in liquids at extremely high temporal resolution. This innovation enables them to track how molecules [...]
Viagra Lowers Alzheimer’s Risk by Almost 70%, Early Study Finds
Research published recently suggests that Pfizer’s erectile dysfunction drug Viagra can decrease the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease by up to 69 percent. The research, which was published in Nature, found that the medication has [...]
