The directors of five of Switzerland’s largest hospitals have written to the health minister asking for urgent measures to reduce coronavirus infections, reports Reuters.

In their letter to Health Minister Alain Berset, the directors of the university hospitals of Zurich, Bern, Basel, Lausanne and Geneva said the pandemic was forcing them to postpone operations for patients with other life-threatening conditions while intensive care beds were becoming scarce.

The directors said they feared a third wave of Covid-19 infections early next year could trigger a collapse in the health system. Gregor Zuend from Zurich University Hospital described how one young cancer patient had to be sent home without having his tumour removed because there were no free spaces.

Switzerland has been hit hard by the epidemic, with around 5,000 new Covid-19 cases every day recently. Roughly 1.3 per cent of the population has been infected in the last 28 days.