Tobias Marti and Sven Zaugg
What hadn’t been imagined! 96 million francs were available to convince unvaccinated people of the easiest way out of the Corona nightmare.
A veritable armada of 1,700 advisors should swarm out next week. Ring the doorbell at Mr. and Mrs. Schweizer’s front door. Call in an emergency. Each consultant could have plowed 5000 residents. So much was planned.
But the consultation already gave an indication of a resinous start. The cantons tore up the bouquet of measures. From St. Gallen to Geneva people wrinkled their noses. “We were a little too rigid, imagined a few measures to be a little too simple,” says the man who should know.
Michael Beer is Mr. Vaccination Week. It is not the first special mission of the 56-year-old, who actually works as Vice Director of the Federal Food Safety and Veterinary Office. When the world was waiting for a corona vaccine, but the Lonza factory in Visp VS lacked the specialists, he found the staff for the pharmaceutical supplier.
No house calls
Beer’s mission number two is more politically sensitive. And now he suddenly says: “There will be no phone calls and no house calls.” Because not a single canton wants this.
It is true that the federal government itself becomes active during the vaccination week – for which it plans to spend ten million francs. Among other things, the Swiss Confederation invites you to the magic of huts in the Impfdorf at Zurich main station and to concerts by musicians such as Stress, Baschi or Stefanie Heinzmann. Most of the vaccination campaign, however, was to be carried out by the cantons. Beer has known since Wednesday how great their efforts are. The first offers in which the cantons applied for their budget are available on SonntagsBlick.
So far, the cantons have only withdrawn just under 18 million francs from the 96 million pot – money that flows directly into the canton’s coffers. Above all, it is about personnel-intensive measures such as mobile vaccination troops or longer opening times of vaccination centers and medical practices.
So the big run for money has so far failed to materialize. Many cantons, including the vaccination lights from eastern Switzerland, put their hands on their laps.
Central Swiss cantons have to step on the gas
So also Appenzell Ausserrhoden: The canton applied for 65,000 francs for its vaccination campaign. This is astonishing because it has one of the lowest vaccination rates in Switzerland at 57 percent. In order to create the remaining 43 percent, the Ausserrhoder invest only 2.70 francs per person.
The canton of Obwalden is different with a similarly low vaccination rate: 55 percent. He draws 310,000 francs from the Federal Council pot – 18 francs per capita to reach previously unvaccinated people. The canton of Bern applied by far the most, with a vaccination rate of 65 percent. He called up 3.9 million francs from the federal government – 10.70 francs per unvaccinated person.
“Our expectations are that the cantons will step on the gas again and exhaust all possibilities,” says Michael Beer. Optimistic for purpose, he states that the cantons are motivated and creative. Measures that are already in force would continue there and new ones would be added that would not be financed by the federal government.
Lukas Engelberger also emphasizes that the cantons had already done a lot before the vaccination offensive was launched. At the same time, the president of the cantonal health directors (GDK) refers to their scarce human resources.
There is no rush
Change of scene to a hall in Obwalden’s industrial district Sarnen Nord: On the ground floor you sweat in the fitness area, on the second floor there is the vaccination, but the Aldi parking lot next door is empty. So this is what the offensive looks like out in the country.
Maya Büchi is tense in the new vaccination center, which was presented to the public on Friday. Obwalden’s health director has had intense days. Her canton has been in the headlines since last week: Nine residents died of Covid in a Giswil retirement home. The Obwalden are considered vaccine-critical, occupy one of the lowest places with 55 percent. If you ask the health director why this is so, she blocks it. She doesn’t know, doesn’t want to speculate either.
So now the big offensive is approaching. How many citizens you want to vaccinate in Sarnen cannot be found out. “The Federal Council has to make these calculations,” says Büchi. However, one is well aware that “there is still room for improvement in Obwalden”.
Federal Health Councilor Alain Berset refused in front of the media on Wednesday to even name a target. It has only been known for about four weeks that the government is aiming for a vaccination rate of 93 percent for people over 65. That was the concept for the vaccination offensive. In the 18- to 65-year-olds, the goal is 80 percent.
SonntagsBlick knows: The federal government is hoping for an additional half a million people who have been vaccinated twice by the end of the year. Bern has the most hope in migrants and – despite open-air concerts – in senior citizens.
Poster in disco look
In any case, Obwalden wants to be closer to the population. With the vaccination camper up the mountain roads, with the vaccination truck to the village squares. An upbeat poster in a disco look on which residents of the canton profess to be vaccinated: a DJ, a dentist, an old government councilor and of course Maya Büchi herself.
“Where are the Obwalden celebrities?” Asks a journalist, referring to marathon runner Viktor Röthlin or skier Dominique Gisin. They are actually not to be seen on the poster. Another asks: “And why are the migrants missing?”
Change of location to Trogen AR in Eastern Switzerland. In the parish hall on Wednesday politicians from St. Gallen, Thurgau and the two Appenzell briefly informed about the upcoming vaccination weeks. One invited into the noble room of the patrician family Zellweger – a dignified environment. What was offered was a rather meager program.
Short hypnosis for phobics
Slightly longer opening times for vaccination centers, syringes without prior notification, short hypnosis for phobics.
«Let’s not kid ourselves», says Yves Noël Balmer, Ausserrhoden’s health director, «we will not be among the front runners even after the vaccination week». Then he recalled the long Appenzell tradition of natural healing and that even the measles vaccination had stoked popular anger here.
Meanwhile Bruno Damann leans far out of the window. The St. Gallen health director, known for pithy sayings (“You shouldn’t overestimate the deaths”) and his rejection of corona tests, has an ambitious goal: “We are striving for an 80 percent vaccination rate.” It is currently 58 percent.
His plan for the canton: small provisional vaccination centers, consultations in churches and an open air. Even a vaccination tour is planned for St.Gallen: to Toggenburg to Ebnat-Kappel, where the vaccination rate is lowest and the former SVP President Toni Brunner is staying in the House of Freedom.
Only: why only now? You have nothing to reproach yourself for, low vaccination quota or not, say the government councilors of eastern Switzerland. After all, a lot has already been done.