Swiss canton by Italy swamped with coronavirus patients - gov't

The southern Swiss canton of Ticino on the border with Italy is being swamped with coronavirus patients and health care authorities are battling to find enough intensive care beds, a top public health official said on Thursday.

"The situation in Ticino is dramatic," Daniel Koch, head of the federal health agency's communicable diseases department, told a news conference in Bern.

The number of coronavirus cases in Switzerland and Liechtenstein has risen to 3,888, health authorities said, with 33 people reported to have died from the disease.