School Rules Confound Parents; Basel Contemplates Begging Action; IMF Lauds Swiss Economy

News For 13 April 2021

Public primary schools in Basel Stadt have revised their Coronavirus response rules leaving many families with extra stress.  As of last Sunday, which happened to coincide with the last day of holiday for children in the Cantonal school system, kids showing up at school with cold, flu or allergy like symptoms - think runny noses and coughing - will also be required to have a negative Covid19 test or else be sent home.  Luckily, Cantonal residents are also eligible for up to five free self-administered tests which can be collected at any pharmacy. However, the news of the last-minute policy change left many families scrambling to ensure their children were not prevented from attending.

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Street begging in Basel has been making headline news in Basel for months, with an increase of beggars visible across the city over the last year, especially around the SBB main train station. The population have complained of their intrusive demeanour, large sleeping camps that have been set up in parks and numerous sightings of laundry being done in some of the city's iconic fountains. The Social Democratic Party has called for an action plan, suggesting a specialist body deals with the current situation in the city. This has been met with a mixture of views from other political bodies, some saying, Switzerland should not take on the burden of this issue, and others prompting the government to offer affordable accommodation and support. The Grand Council, the Basel cantonal parliament, has spoken out in favour of reintroducing the ban on begging. But after the European Court of Human Rights recognised a violation of the human rights convention in the complete ban on begging in the canton of Geneva, the Basel government is once again back to the drawing board.  

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Last week, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) released a report on the response of global economies to the pandemic.  According to the report, Switzerland fared considerably better than its neighbors with a GDP decline of 2.9% in 2020. Neighboring countries France, Germany and Italy each saw declines in economic activity of 8.2%, 4.9% and 8.9% each, respectively.  Switzerland is credited with having strong public and household finances and a reliance on export industries which do not rely intensively on interpersonal contact. In addition, containment strategies which emphasized targeted closures of enterprises and institutions, combined with a rapid offer of financial assistance businesses seems to have worked in the country's favor.