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Comment by _nalply | Hacker News Reader

Living in Switzerland: People changed behavior drastically.

Hand shaking completely disappeared, oncoming walking people making a bend to guarantee the distance of 6 feet, hand sanitizers for everybody everywhere, businesses and associations have to publish government-approved conceptions of protection against infections before re-opening and many other little changes.

However relatively little face masks, no curfew and as of today life is going on not quite as before. For example, next week swimming courses for children resume, but parents are asked to send the children already clothed for swimming and are warned if they don't follow the guidelines they and their children will be excluded. In the local hospital all visitors are given face masks to be worn without exception by a Securitas (a private police) employee.

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> People changed behavior drastically.

That's a massive overstatement. I live in Geneva, one of the worst hit cantons (they say around 10% infection rate). Way too many people for a long time simply didn't care, the list of personal anecdotes is way too long to post here.

We all were seeing what is happening few kms south from our border, and government did nothing for almost 2 weeks. It was seriously ridiculous, all restaurants and concerts packed, when 50km south Italian hospitals were already flooded and news was everywhere. There was vote on top level of government which ended up in favor of keeping business opened, because money. People rarely using face masks, even during hardest hits not even half of supermarket shoppers wore masks, on streets barely anybody. Most of the supermarket staff didn't use any mask either.

Generally German-speaking parts were much less affected, I've heard many personal stories from friends that were verbally attacked and mocked on streets and shops for wearing masks (locals mockingly start coughing behind them in shop and rest of the staff having a blast). I know of several people that were fired back in march/april because they came to work in simple face masks due to them being immune-deficient, and management decided to fire them on spot for 'spreading panick', no discussion (if you are blue collar foreigner here, sometimes locals treat you like disposable piece of shit and don't even try to hide it).

Once laws were changed people started behaving a bit more sane, but far from ideal - many people on streets and parks completely ignoring 2 meter rule (even 1 meter). I saw an old guy sitting on bench in the park, coughing like hell, no mask, while on phone having laughs how other people avoided him, even police patrol which didn't even bother to talk to him.

How well this country fares now, despite all of this gives me hope that it ain't that bad with covid. Swiss didn't 'beat' it due to great behavior they showed, in contrary. My home country was much more prudent and restriction were quick and followed by almost eveyrbody, and they ended up with 5% of the Swiss infection rate, despite being of similar size. Of course it could be that it was still stellar behavior en Suisse compared to what common Italians or Spaniards showed, this I can't compare.

Zurich resident (and Swiss citizen) here. I agree that in the beginning, a lot of people and politicians didn't recognize the seriousness of the situation. The fact that the Swiss political system isn't really made for quick decisions from a central authority probably didn't help either.

But once people realized that this is going to be real bad if it continues unchecked, behaviour changed a lot IMO, even in regions that had very little virus activity.

True, mask wearing is still a problem, and you could see lots of people doing outside activities even during the worst part of the lock down. But as luck would have it, outside infections seem to play almost no epidemiological role. Turns out not wearing masks on the street or going for a Sunday hike on crowded paths isn't a big deal, and in retrospect I'm glad that our lock-down wasn't quite as limiting as in other parts of Europe.

I wish masks were mandatory on public transport, though.

Zurich resident also here. I don't believe behaviour changed much. I see a small minority of people wearing masks. In the entire course of the epidemic one person looked at me annoyed for daring to be outside, nobody has ever crossed the street or taken steps to avoid me or my partner as we walked outside.

The mask wearers look rather foolish because the data is by now very clear that this is no worse than any other year's flu. It's just not a dangerous disease. The hype is illusory, the models were wrong. The barriers in restaurants and perspex in supermarkets is as far as it goes and even that looks over the top.

as luck would have it, outside infections seem to play almost no epidemiological role

But is it luck? Or is it that the Swiss people reached the correct conclusions much faster than the supposed experts advising the world? As you say, the behaviour was correct, and the moment the similarities in behaviour to other common viruses became apparent, that wasn't irrational.

I wish masks were mandatory on public transport, though.

Please no. Virtually nobody has been doing this and cases have now hit zero anyway so why would it have ever mattered? When will we learn that practically every piece of supposedly expert advice during this pandemic has been wrong? The wisdom of the crowds is far better here than the wisdom of the academics.

https://www.srf.ch/news/schweiz/coronavirus-so-entwickeln-si...

see "Wöchentliche Todesfälle in der Schweiz", and remember the red curve is with measures, the greys without. Maybe you haven't had a friend's uncle die of covid. It could have been much worse; I think we got lucky.

I wish that at least 1 positive outcome from the covid once its really over - people in the west start taking face masks as not something to laugh at, but as an indication that given person doesn't want to infect others around them with whatever he thinks he is having.

I saw it long time ago as normal in south east Asia and it looked like a fine example of compassion towards rest of the population. Compared to usual west when people often go about their business, not caring much about others ie in public transport, schools or open offices. Only now it became acceptable in otherwise advanced place like Switzerland, till now one often faced real persecution, mocking and overall rejection from large parts of society.

Rest of your comment is unfortunately pure garbage, not worth any feedback.

Switzerland is not uniform. It seems that is it easier for the alemannic part to adapt to social distancing. For example, when my wife and I entered an elevator, the people already in it left the elevator. I found that very rude at first but then I understood. That's why I wrote that people changed behavior drastically.

Also see my other comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23439687

Sounds very similar to Finland. We've been under similar lockdown for two-ish months now, and we are down to maybe 25 new confirmed cases per day.

Do most people use masks in Finland?

I'm kind of shocked how few people use them in Switzerland. Not that I know for sure how much do masks help, but it's so cheap to get them! And the supply is now plentiful. Talk about cost/reward, especially when compared to debilitating costs of things like shutdowns ...

In either case, Europe is cool for now. Let's see what will the Autumn and Winter bring.

Mask use is quite rare here. The government had a group of researchers do a literary review of evidence for mask use and found the evidence lacking. The review has been (rightfully) critiqued, but there is no formal recommendation for mask use. Hopefully they will reconsider especially if the infection rate starts rising again. The epidemic has been concentrated near the capital with around 80% of cases found there in the last few weeks. I for one would advocate mask use around there even now to keep the rates declining.

After having been half a day at a hospital with a face mask I realize it's just «Gewöhnungssache» (a matter of getting used to something). I am sure when about half of the population experienced half a day with a face mask on, then the majority will adapt. Face masks are just simply something which needs some getting used to. When really many people wear face masks then nobody will eye them warily.

And Switzerland probably never will pass this threshold.

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