After my summer abroad was canceled, I was so disappointed to still be stuck in the United States. However, I can live vicariously through FaceTimes with my high school best friend, Natascha who lives in Lugano, Switzerland where she attends university. She’s been there since the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak, and she has seen the waves of the virus go in and out of the country. I thought it would be interesting to not focus on the United States for once and see how other countries such as Switzerland are dealing with COVID-19, through the experiences of my friend Tascha.
At the beginning of March, when the world began to shut down and we all got kicked out of our dorms, Switzerland shut down completely. Tascha’s classes were moved online and the school provided her food and groceries so no one had to leave their dorm. Some students left because the borders were closing, but Tascha stayed hoping to wait out the virus. In May, Switzerland started to open up completely and everything went back to normal. Masks were not required, meanwhile, in the United States we were all still hunkered down in quarantine.
In July, Switzerland started to see a rise in cases, so masks were now required on transportation. By September, Switzerland’s light precautions were not enough, and the country saw a huge spike.
After many ups and downs, we cut to this past week, when Switzerland just made masks mandatory throughout the country. Now the country is dealing with an entirely new issue: people following the rules.
At Tascha’s university, there has been distrust spreading throughout the campus. Her school is so small that everyone knows everyone, which means rumors spread fast. The problem with college students is that they think because they are young, they are invincible. A group of freshmen went out clubbing and contracted the virus, so now the campus is in more of a defensive state. The campus went from mostly in-person to a mix of online and in person.
After going from a strict lockdown, to normal life, back to strict again, Tascha has seen it all in Switzerland. But now, she can kind of get the United States experience with masks protocols and people not willing to abide by regulations.