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| - With Covid-19 cases and deaths still rising fast, The Swiss government announced Friday that restaurants and bars across the country would be closed again, while ski slopes will remain open. "The epidemiological situation is a cause of great concern," the government said in a statement. "The number of infections is very high and is continuing to rise. Hospitals and healthcare workers have been under extreme pressure for weeks and the festive period increases the risk of an even more rapid rise in cases," it explained. Switzerland, a country of about 8.6 million people, is continuing to see more than 4,000 new cases and 100 deaths each day, despite a wide range of measures taken recently in parts of the country. In total, the country has recorded more than 400,000 cases and nearly 6,000 deaths since the start of the pandemic. The new measures announced Friday include the country-wide closure, from December 22, of restaurants, bars, and cultural and sporting venues. Just a week before Christmas, the government decided that shops could remain open, but with limited capacity. There are a number of exceptions to the new restrictions, which are due to last for at least a month. Hotel restaurants and school and workplace cafeterias will not have to close. And while sporting venues will be asked to close, professional teams will be permitted to play games without spectators. The government also said that cantons that shows positive epidemiological development could individually decide to loosen some of the national restrictions. That decision followed outrange expressed over fresh restrictions from French-speaking cantons, which had already recently shut restaurants and closed cultural sights for weeks while the German-speaking part of the country left everything open. And while several European countries have decided to shut down ski lifts over the holidays to avoid spikes in infection, the Swiss once again said their slopes would remain open, as long as they implement the same restrictions as shops. Swiss Health Minister Alain Berset nonetheless urged his countrymen to "think" before setting off on a snow holiday, warning that the hospitals are already full. vog/nl/wai
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