And a beautiful rant it was. I completely agree and i personally think that Switzerland has had among the better responses in europe. There are far worse examples like the UK and the Swedes. South korea, Hungary and Chech republic are even more impressive with their way of taking this seriously from the very beginning, which is good now later on and means that they don’t have to take as hard decisions as some other countries will have to do soon…
But yes, praise to all the hard working people on all the hospitals.
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I fondly remeber the days when Zimbabwe dollar was world’s reserve currency.
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And did you see the response of Yugoslavia? Incredible!
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If only the HOLY Roman Empire had the equally good and fast response!
Point taken. FED has more room than any other bank. It’s however exaggeration to say that it doesn’t have physical limits. There are limits, we haven’t reached them yet though.
News just in: https://www.ft.com/content/dacd2ac6-6b5f-11ea-89df-41bea055720b
The country home to the phrase “schwarze Null” (black zero) in reference to its balanced budget commitment is set to unveil a €600B bailout fund to deal with the economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic. As a reference, a U.S. plan on the same scale in relation to the economy would be north of $3T.
As part of the German package, the government is planning on raising more than €350B in debt (about 10% of GDP).
Private corporations … welcome to your new partner. Included in the fund is €100B to take direct equity stakes in what might otherwise be bankrupt companies. There will also be €400B to help back the debt of troubled companies.
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I think I’ll buy a little bit of VT just in case these rescue packages will be enough to prevent a recession and a stock market crash. But not too much, because I still believe a crash is possible once we will see army collecting coffins on the streets of NYC.
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Joke of the day, how the Swiss CDC is managing the coronavirus data. https://www.ictjournal.ch/news/2020-03-20/les-lacunes-aberrantes-de-la-collecte-de-donnees-a-lofsp
“As a result, the backlog of unprocessed files is growing and pushing staff to make extreme decisions, such as having to weigh the forms received to determine the number of forms.”
“Worse, the official statistics were only recently taken from Wikipedia.”
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Doctors in Spain have been recommended to treat patients who have more than two years’ life expectancy and to evaluate a patient’s potential value to society when deciding who to treat first, a controversial piece of advice
Any ideas how would it look like in Switzerland? Would it matter what kind of insurance you have? I’m asking for the future, because then I would consider to up my health insurance plan. That’s what insurances are for, right? To protect you from life-threatening events. So paying, I don’t know, 600 CHF per year extra to have a priority in case of shortage of beds could make sense. And this money could go to upgrade the hospital infrastructure. Ain’t no point in being rich if you’re dead, right?
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Considering that it doesn’t exist anymore… 
Joking aside, one thing I’ve noticed is that the italian curve is noticeably less steep than the american one. The swiss one is inbetween though.
I think no one was bashing the hard worker here. Or at least not me. Who I might bash is whoever has the power to set new law and start fining/“domestic-arrest” people and instead let the picked person of the day to go in front of the journalist and start the “pleease pleeeaase stay home” mantra.
If it might ever happen, it will be based on health and age.
Habe Patienten mit Zusatzversicherung Vortritt?
Nein, der Versicherungsstatus darf bei dringlichen Behandlungen keine Rolle spielen. Eine Bevorzugung von Zusatzversicherten bei medizinischen Rationierungsentscheidungen wäre ebenfalls verfassungswidrig.
Source: Wer kommt zuerst an die Beatmungsmaschine: der junge Verbrecher oder die 90-jährige Frau? | NZZ
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There is not a single death case below 30 in Italy. I think we shouldn’t worry.
Actually insurances are a means of passing to someone else the costs/financial losses incurred from insured risks that crystallize. So I don’t think that upgrading your insurance plan will overcome a similar issue as doctors have to face in Spain… But, to be sure, better give a call to your insurance broker, rather than taking the word of a random guy on the internets 
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Dude, now it’s too late anyway. I said I’m asking for the future. You don’t know how the next epidemic might look like and it would also be something to keep in mind once you’re 50-60.
Anyway, I think there should exist some kind of complimentary insurance, which would give you “bonus points” in the game of who gets the bed first. You pay more => healthcare system gets more financing => they can build more ICUs.
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I am older than 30 years…
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This sounds wrong on so many levels. If you could decide who should live: a 22 year old woman with no additional insurance or the rich 70 year old, who should it be?
@Myfirstme
If you are younger than 60, you still don’t have to worry.
Like that person?
Isn’t median age of hospitalization, people on respirator like 60?
FYI being on respirator means artificial coma, and often has long term impact on lungs…
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US one will be steep while they catch up on testing, they just started doing proper testing.
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You can also see insurance as a subscription-based service. The subscription gives you access if something happens and it finances the operations of the service (building, instruments, staff).
Please, use logic instead of emotions. Imagine that the basic insurance covers the existing hospital infrastructure. With the extra premium you enable the construction of additional ICUs. If these people didn’t opt for this option, these beds would not be there in the first place. You only have stuff built and available if someone pays for it in advance. You still think it’s “wrong on so many levels”?
No this is not how it works. Insurance are private companies that will pay the bill. It has nothing to do with hospital funding.
You also got the Spanish facts misinterpreted. The same things happened in Italy. They were choosing between people who were literally on their last breath (high risk of imminent death) and otherwise healthy patients who came in for Covid. It’s a choice about saving the maximum amount of lives, not a choice between who has the best insurance
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