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Covid-19: Zurich schools extend mask mandate

Zurich authorities have extended the mask mandate for schools until the end of February.

Published: 18 January 2022 10:52 CET

A student wearing a mask standing outside a school building

Zurich has extended the mask rules in schools until the end of February. Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

On Tuesday, January 18th, Zurich authorities extended the school mask mandate until February 27th.

The government presumes the number of infections will continue to rise in the canton in the coming weeks and wanted to take appropriate steps to ensure teachers, children and their families are as safe as possible.

Infection rates have continued to climb in Switzerland in recent weeks, with new records being set almost daily.

Daily infections crossed the 20,000 mark for the first time in early January 2022, before crossing 30,000 in a 24-hour period several times later in the month.

On January 11th, Zurich authorities warned of 40,000 infections in the canton alone in late January.

‘40,000 cases daily in Zurich’ as authorities warn of triage for the unvaccinated

What are the current rules for masks in Zurich schools?

All teachers and support staff in the canton of Zurich are required to wear masks to prevent the spread of Covid-19.

Students must also wear masks from the first primary class and above.

Each school in Zurich, Switzerland’s most populous canton, is required to have its own hygiene and safety concept which lays out exactly how students will be protected from Covid.

The rules are laid out here by the Zurich Cantonal Government.

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Growth spurt: What Zurich needs to do to accommodate 2 million residents

At the end of 2023, over 1.6 million people lived in Zurich, Switzerland’s most populous canton.

But this number is far from static.

The population is continuing to grow — so much so, that it will reach the 2-million mark in the coming years, cantonal authorities said in a press release.

This means an increase of around 450,000 people within the next two decades — a 28-percent growth rate, which is “significantly higher than the Swiss average.”

The primary reason for this hike, accounting for 49 percent of the increase, is immigration, followed by births (44 percent) and, to a lesser degree (7 percent), people moving to Zurich from other Swiss regions

On one hand, this is good news because “it is evidence of the canton’s attractiveness and economic prosperity,” authorities pointed out.

On the other, however, this demographic evolution will create a number of new problems and exacerbate the already existing ones.

That is why “strategic decisions are needed on how to handle challenges facing various areas,” cantonal officials said.

‘Dealing with consequences’

With this ‘growth spurt,’ Zurich will experience many of the same challenges as Switzerland on the whole will, as demographers are expecting the country’s population to swell to 10 million (from the current 9 million) people in the coming years.

Just as the federal government has started to think about the best ways to prepare the country’s infrastructure for the growing numbers, Zurich’s authorities too will be “shaping this growth” and “dealing with its consequences.”

To achieve this goal, they have launched the ‘Growth 2050” project to begin in the summer, which will examine “which approach is most suitable for strategically addressing the challenges ahead,” according to the press release.

What exactly does this mean?

While the project’s findings will not be made public until 2027, authorities will have to ensure that Zurich’s infrastructure, such as housing, public transport, as well as school and healthcare systems, will not crumble under pressure, but be able to function optimally — from both the financial and practical perspectives — in the new context.

While all these areas are important, in Zurich’s case, housing appears to be a particular problem as more residents move into the canton.

With tens of thousands of foreign nationals having settled in Zurich in the past few years, for instance, affordable housing had become scarcer — a situation that has continued to deteriorate and is expected to grow worse as more residents continue to arrive in the future.

READ ALSO: Zurich hit by affordable housing shortage amid record-high immigration

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