For many of his critics, Christoph Berger, the President of the Federal Commission on Vaccination, is a “sucker”. The fact that he performs an important position on a voluntary basis earns him little thanks.
Is heavily criticized: Christoph Berger, the President of the Federal Commission for Vaccination Issues.
On Wednesday, Christoph Berger had an appearance in the «Rundschau» of television SRF. Berger, the President of the Federal Commission for Vaccination Questions (Ekif), had to justify the fact that his committee had only made a cautious recommendation for the corona vaccination of children. The moderator – a father, as he pointed out – couldn’t understand that. He listed all of the blessings of child vaccination to Berger. In his opinion, at least a vaccination appeal would have been appropriate.
It often happens to the head of the Infectious Disease and Hospital Hygiene Department at the Children’s Hospital in Zurich that laypeople know better than he does. Everyone has become experts in the pandemic. Just a few months ago, the pediatrician was referred to by the media as the “vaccine pope”. Today he is considered by many to be a «contagionist». The hashtag #Bergermussweg is circulating on social networks.
Berger has chaired the Vaccination Commission since 2015 and has been a member since 2006. The committee is an independent expert commission of the federal government, which is supposed to act as a mediator between authorities, specialist groups and the population in vaccination issues. Ekif, founded in 2004, is based on scientific knowledge and the guidelines of medicine. The office is not equipped for political activism in a pandemic.
The 59-year-old doctor is one of many people in this country who do volunteer work. The militia system is one of the pillars on which Switzerland rests. Without the many men and women who work for the common good almost free of charge, the country would be a different one.
The principle of voluntary work is regularly honored in August 1st speeches. Parliamentarians are proud to point out that they are not professional politicians. Switzerland has a militia parliament, a militia army, and even the competition commission, which can make decisions on amounts in the billions, is a militia authority in Switzerland. Federal Councilor Ueli Maurer, who himself worked in the militia for decades, once described the militia system as a “water level indicator for how much we care about free values and a lean state”.
But the militia system that politicians and association officials love to praise in their Sunday speeches is weakened. The political scientist Markus Freitag, who together with co-authors published a book on militia work in Switzerland in 2019, has calculated that in politics alone there are 73 percent fewer militia workers than in 1997.
There are various reasons why fewer and fewer people are willing to volunteer: According to studies, the first place is the increasing burden in the family and at work, followed by dwindling support from employers and the low financial compensation. As any volunteer will confirm, there is one more important reason for the system to be eroded: Those who set up a militia office usually receive little recognition from society or are still hostile to them.
Perhaps the age of volunteering is actually coming to an end. Perhaps the trend towards professionalization can no longer be stopped in Switzerland either. As long as the head of the Federal Vaccination Commission is not a well-paid official, but a volunteer professional, one should refrain from using must-go hashtags. You don’t have to share Berger’s opinion. But those who voluntarily expose themselves to a political storm in a pandemic deserve respect. Otherwise the pressure will eventually become too great and then, as Berger says in the “Rundschau”, “someone else will do it”. One of the few who are still willing to do militia work.