Contact tracing for the next pandemic: linking cantons better
The Federal Council supports adjustments for harmonised contact tracing. The key point is not a new app, but the ability to bring information together quickly and in a legally secure way during a crisis.
Contact tracing was both indispensable and overwhelmed during the Covid-19 pandemic. As long as case numbers stayed manageable, teams could trace chains of infection and inform exposed people. When the waves grew higher, many cantonal systems reached their limits. It is precisely from this experience that the Confederation now wants to draw consequences.
The Federal Council supports a package of legal, organisational and technical adjustments to harmonise contact tracing in future pandemics. It thereby fulfils a postulate of the Geschäftsprüfungskommission des Ständerates. The focus is on responsibilities, data flows and the ability to scale up quickly in an emergency.
A federal system under time pressure
Health care in Switzerland is largely organised at cantonal level. That closeness can be an advantage, because cantons know local structures and population groups. In a dynamic pandemic, however, it creates friction: a virus does not stop at cantonal borders, people commute, and data must be exchangeable between different systems.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, almost all cantons built their own technical solutions for contact tracing. That allowed rapid action on the ground but produced a patchwork. In documents on the revision of the Epidemics Act, the Confederation states that no uniform national solution existed. The result was additional coordination effort and a situation overview that became harder to obtain.
Harmonisation does not necessarily mean centralisation. Cantons can continue the operational work, but use common standards, interfaces and, where needed, central support. In that way information could flow faster and with less manual rework, without every task being shifted to Bern.
What technology can do – and what it cannot
A good system can record cases in a structured way, prioritise contact persons and transmit data securely. It can avoid duplication and support cantons during peaks. But it cannot call people, build trust or guarantee cooperation.
That puts data protection and proportionality at the centre. Health data are particularly sensitive. In a crisis the state needs enough information to limit risks; at the same time it must remain clear who may access which data and how long they are stored. Building a high-performance system must not mean that a permanent movement or contact register emerges outside an epidemic.
The lesson is organisational
The most important step forward would be a clear prior agreement. Who decides when a national system is activated? How are staff reserves provided? Which data must cantons supply and which analyses do they get back? These questions cannot be answered only once case numbers rise.
With this project, the Federal Council is relying on a lesson from Covid-19: digitalisation does not replace public health work. But it can ensure that professionals have the right information at the right moment.
Sources
- Confederation: Harmonisation of contact tracing: https://www.blv.admin.ch/de/newnsb/cdn2OJFIF2yJ
- Dispatch on the amendment of the Epidemics Act: bag.admin.ch/dam/de/sd-web/4wOEp7YV2jSo/Botschaft%20zur%20%…
- Federal Office of Public Health: Revision of the Epidemics Act: https://www.bag.admin.ch/de/revision-epidemiengesetz
- Postulate 23.4315: parlament.ch/de/ratsbetrieb/suche-curia-vista/geschaeft?Aff…
