Exclusive Content:

Bese Media GmbH: Der Marketing-Experte für Rohr- und Kanalreinigung...

Gummersbach (ots) - Die Bese Media GmbH, führende Marketingagentur...

26. Generali Köln Marathon: REWE Group unterstützt das Lauf-Event...

Köln (ots) - Die REWE Group ist bei der...

Holz rettet Klima: GRIFFNER in Deutschland ausgezeichnet – besondere...

Griffen (ots) - Deutsche schätzen GRIFFNER für Festpreisgarantie, Nachhaltigkeit...

CHINESE EXPATS LOOK TO HOMELAND AS ESCAPE FROM EUROPE’S CORONAVIRUS CRISIS

Sally Yan, who has lived in Switzerland for 13 years, left her home in Zurich over the weekend to wait out the coronavirus pandemic in what she believes to be a safer location: Shanghai.

“In China, fighting the virus is under control, and getting business back to normal is the top priority,” said Yan, co-founder of a fintech company called Drivetide Capital, days before her departure. “In Switzerland, it is just one of the things to be solved.”

While the number of new cases reported in China has dropped off in recent days, infections in the rest of the world continue to surge. The World Health Organization has labeled Europe as the new epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic. Italy has suffered the biggest outbreak in the region—more than 24,000 cases as of Monday and at least 1,800 deaths.

“China’s response was very rapid, highly centralized, well-controlled, and well-coordinated,” says Rifat Atun, professor of global health systems at Harvard University. “It gave time for European countries to adequately prepare for a response. Unfortunately, countries did not use this time wisely to prepare, and I fear Europe has done too little too late.”

Europe’s new playbook 

The Chinese government was widely criticized in the West for its heavy-handed response to the outbreak. Now some European countries are following Beijing’s example, using mass quarantines, transportation bans, and country-wide school closures.

“Many European countries have shifted their approach and now appear to be taking a page out of China’s playbook in their responses to coronavirus,” said Josh Michaud, associate director for global health policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation in Washington, D.C.

Spain announced a nationwide lockdown Saturday, and France closed all nonessential businesses, including cafes, restaurants, shops, and movie theaters. Germany restored border controls with neighboring countries. The United Kingdom has avoided broad, disruptive measures so far.

Switzerland, too, is stepping up efforts to confront the escalating health crisis. Until recently, the government relied on an information campaign about hygiene and social distancing along with a ban on big events. But on Friday, the Federal Council closed schools and universities, restricted gatherings to less than 100 people, and authorized border controls. While Switzerland isn’t a member of the European Union, it belongs to the region’s passport-free Schengen Area.

“The challenge in Europe is that the responses are highly fragmented,” Atun said. “Each country has its own separate and sometimes conflicting measures. There is no central coordination.”

China on the cards 

With the epidemic in China apparently subsiding and with life returning to normal, Chinese expats and their families are looking to their home country as an escape from what they fear is just the start of the crisis in Europe. In Switzerland, more than 2,000 people have tested positive to coronavirus and 14 people have died. And those are just the severe cases as officials are no longer testing people with mild symptoms.

Yan is from Huangshi, a city just an hour’s drive away from Wuhan, where the coronavirus originated. Her mother is still in quarantine. The decision to pack her bags for Shanghai, her husband’s hometown, did not come lightly.

“It was very hard. I’ve been thinking about it for quite a few days, back and forth,” she said.

Martin Hedman, a 61-year-old resident of the canton Vaud and a Swedish citizen, just renewed his family visa to China, allowing him to stay there for three months at a time. He and his wife, who is from Suzhou, west of Shanghai, took their 9-year-old daughter out of school days before the nationwide shutdown announced Friday. Although he welcomes the new measures, a move to China remains “a serious option.”

“A month ago, we were sending breathing masks to our family in China,” Hedman said. “Now they are sending them back to us.”

Ling C., a Chinese national and communications freelancer, who asked that her full name not be used, has been checking flights to Shanghai nearly every day. Although she has lived in Zurich for six years, she says a count of 10,000 coronavirus cases in Switzerland could prompt her to go back for a few months.

The door may be closing fast. Starting Monday, anyone arriving from abroad to Beijing will be transferred to city quarantine facilities for 14 days.

Yan, who arrived in Shanghai on Saturday, isn’t abandoning Switzerland in its time of need. While in China, she will be helping her company use data analytics to source medical supplies such as masks, protective suits, and gloves for Europe.

“Just staying in Switzerland, I could not do much if people have to quarantine themselves at home due to the virus,” she said. “Here I can definitely add more value.”

WATCH MORE

Coronavirus fuels record sales of computer screens
Screens and other office supplies are in great demand these days as the coronavirus forces people to work from home. Digitec Galaxus is among retailers who say they are seeing record-breaking sales of some items.

Start-ups struggle to survive coronavirus
Cash-strapped start-ups that manage to stay afloat in the coming months may struggle to survive the economic aftermath of the coronavirus, says Jordi Montserrat, co-founder of Venturelab, a group that supports entrepreneurs in Switzerland. He predicts that investors will reconsider some existing projects and hold off funding for new ones.

Will hotel industry be gutted by coronavirus?
Hotels are especially exposed to the effects of coronavirus, from the spate of recent cancellations to travelers not even booking because of the current uncertainty. Ari Andricopoulos, the CEO of RoomPriceGenie, a company that helps small and medium-sized hotels price their rooms, is already feeling the pinch. “Hotel owners are fearing the worst at this stage,” he says. “There’s a good spirit of solidarity in the hotel industry, but I think we all know it’s not a good time.”

Why you can’t trust coronavirus counts
At least 613 people have tested positive for coronavirus in Switzerland, but that number isn’t a reliable measure of the outbreak. The Swiss government is abandoning efforts to keep a precise count of coronavirus cases to focus instead on easing the burden on the healthcare system and protecting the most vulnerable—the elderly and those with preexisting conditions. “The government has decided that they will only test people who are at risk, who have strong symptoms,” said Michael Hengartner, president of the ETH Board. “Young people, who might have weak symptoms, will simply be asked to stay at home to minimize contagion.” The Cantonal Hospital of Lucerne has received a recommendation from the government to limit testing to the most vulnerable or severe cases, said spokesman Markus von Rotz. “Only patients who are hospitalized and health care staff will be tested for coronavirus,” said Claude Kaufmann, a spokesman for Hirslanden Private Hospital Group, which operates 17 hospitals. “Patients with fever and cough must stay at home so that they do not infect anyone.” The Swiss Federal Office of Public Health confirmed that the cases could be far higher than reported and that “people at especially high risk are tested as a priority.“ No test, no infection This raises the question of whether the count reflects the true scale of the outbreak. Many people have been keeping tabs on the daily tally from the federal health office, relying on it to provide a measure of the severity of the situation in Switzerland. The country reported its third coronavirus death Tuesday as the outbreak worsens in neighboring Italy, which has logged over 9,000 infections and 460 deaths. It also marks a change in strategy from the early days of the outbreak, when the government ramped up testing following the first confirmed case on Feb. 25. Back then, even mild cases were being counted and traced in the effort to contain the crisis. The Swiss Federal Council said Friday that tracing the infection would continue “as long as possible.” At the same time, it indicated that protecting people by minimizing contact—at work or social events—was now the bigger priority. Large events have been banned across the country but, unlike in Italy, no blanket travel restrictions have been imposed. And the Swiss border remains open to commuters from Italy.  “With the infection rate that this virus has, it will basically cross across the human population,” Hengartner said. “It will become a pandemic. And the challenge for governments is to keep the infection rate low enough that we can always manage the patients that need to get hospitalized.”

Coronavirus shuts down Italy but Swiss border remains open
Despite a nationwide shutdown in Italy, cross-border workers are still welcome in Switzerland. CNNMoney Switzerland reports from Chiasso as the number of cases of the virus continues to grow.

Swiss border open for business
The 68,000 Italians employed in Switzerland are vital to the economy, says the president of AITI, the industry association of Ticino, which explains why the Swiss border remains open despite the lockdown in neighboring Italy.

World is losing battle to contain coronavirus, says president of ETH Board
Countries including Switzerland are abandoning efforts to keep a precise count of coronavirus cases and are focusing instead on helping hospitals cope with patient overload, says Michael Hengartner, president of the ETH Board and chairman of the Executive Committee. With a pandemic inevitable, the challenge now is to “keep the infection rate low enough that we can always manage patients that need to get hospitalized.”

COVID-19 may tip world into financial crisis, UN warns
The world is vulnerable to a financial crisis if the coronavirus epidemic drags on because it is already so deep in debt, the United Nation’s trade body warned in a report on Monday. An enduring health emergency will likely trigger margin calls, tighten borrowing conditions, and increase the risk of a stampede to sell assets not hit in the first round of market turmoil, the UN Conference on Trade and Development said. “This raises the prospect of a credit crunch in a period of high indebtedness,” despite very low interest rates, the report says. Hopes of a recovery will hinge on sustained and coordinated liquidity injections by central banks, more active fiscal policies, and renewed efforts to bolster trade. “Central banks should do whatever it takes in the face of the COVID-19, including directing credit for production and employment,” UNCTAD said. The world has been on a borrowing binge since the 2008 meltdown, when central banks pumped vast sums into cash-strapped markets and banks to shore up the system. At the start of 2020, total debt stocks exceeded more than $250 trillion, about three times global gross domestic product, according to the Institute of International Finance. Developing countries most at risk Developing countries are particularly vulnerable to a credit crunch, as many are already struggling with the highest debt levels on record. “For many developing countries that are facing debt distress already, I think we’re going to have to look at more radical solutions,” Richard Kozul-Wright, who oversees globalization and development strategies at UNCTAD, said in an interview Monday with CNNMoney’s Kasmira Jefford. “The need for a moratorium on debt servicing in some countries will also be necessary.” Economists have warned for years that such massive debt is a risk for the global economy. Record-low interest rates in countries around the globe have made it easier and cheaper for corporates, individuals, and governments to borrow. Last week, the U.S. Federal Reserve, which cut rates three times last year, slashed them by half a percentage point in response to the economic threat from COVID-19. The European Central Bank meets this week, and markets are pricing in a much smaller cut, given that rates are already in negative territory. There is also speculation that the ECB is preparing measures to provide liquidity to businesses hit by the outbreak.

More women in Swiss boardrooms
The percentage of women on the executive boards of Switzerland’s 100 largest employers has edged up to reach 10% for the first time, according to executive search firm Schilling Partners. When taking into consideration a broader boardroom study by Deloitte, that figure rises above the global average to just under 19%.

Coronavirus is good for the fertility business
The U.N. estimates the economic burden of women’s diseases to be in the tens of millions. But according to Lea von Bidder, CEO of fertility tracking company Ava, only 4% of R&D investment in health care goes towards female-specific health needs. Von Bidder tells us about the femtech gender gap and shares why the coronavirus outbreak is a boon for the fertility business.

Swapping handshakes for elbow bumps
As authorities around the world scramble to contain the coronavirus, people are facing a new dilemma: how to greet someone without a handshake. Here are five suggestions.

Latest

Bese Media GmbH: Der Marketing-Experte für Rohr- und Kanalreinigung erobert die Bautrocknung

Gummersbach (ots) - Die Bese Media GmbH, führende Marketingagentur...

Holz rettet Klima: GRIFFNER in Deutschland ausgezeichnet – besondere Hingabe für Nachhaltigkeit und Design

Griffen (ots) - Deutsche schätzen GRIFFNER für Festpreisgarantie, Nachhaltigkeit...

Fairtrade wächst im ersten Halbjahr 2024

Köln Gute Nachrichten für den nachhaltigen Konsum: Der Absatz...
spot_img

Nicht verpassen

Bese Media GmbH: Der Marketing-Experte für Rohr- und Kanalreinigung erobert die Bautrocknung

Gummersbach (ots) - Die Bese Media GmbH, führende Marketingagentur...

Holz rettet Klima: GRIFFNER in Deutschland ausgezeichnet – besondere Hingabe für Nachhaltigkeit und Design

Griffen (ots) - Deutsche schätzen GRIFFNER für Festpreisgarantie, Nachhaltigkeit...

Fairtrade wächst im ersten Halbjahr 2024

Köln Gute Nachrichten für den nachhaltigen Konsum: Der Absatz...
Tanja Schiller
Tanja Schillerhttps://cnnmoney.ch
Mein Name ist Tanja Schiller. Ich bin 28 Jahre alt und gehe hier bei CNNMoney meiner Berufung, dem redaktionellen Schreiben, nach. Dabei will ich Ihnen dem Leser nicht nur aktuelle News vermitteln, sondern auch Produkte auf Herz und Nieren testen und schauen, ob sie wirklich halten was sie versprechen!
spot_imgspot_img

Bese Media GmbH: Der Marketing-Experte für Rohr- und Kanalreinigung erobert die Bautrocknung

Gummersbach (ots) - Die Bese Media GmbH, führende Marketingagentur für Rohr- und Kanalreinigungsunternehmen, erweitert ihr Erfolgsmodell auf die Bautrocknung (http://bese-media.de/bautrocknung). Seit Jahren unterstützt Bese...

26. Generali Köln Marathon: REWE Group unterstützt das Lauf-Event der Domstadt seit 23 Jahren – in diesem Jahr mit prominenter Staffel um REWE Group-CEO...

Köln (ots) - Die REWE Group ist bei der 26. Auflage des Köln Marathons am 6. Oktober 2024 wieder als Unterstützter mit am Start....

Holz rettet Klima: GRIFFNER in Deutschland ausgezeichnet – besondere Hingabe für Nachhaltigkeit und Design

Griffen (ots) - Deutsche schätzen GRIFFNER für Festpreisgarantie, Nachhaltigkeit und Design: Der Bundesverband Deutscher Fertigbau zeichnet den österreichischen Holzbau-Spezialisten GRIFFNER aus. Der österreichische Holzbau-Spezialist GRIFFNER...