Swiss canton by Italy swamped with coronavirus patients - government

ZURICH (Reuters) - 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.

(Reporting by Michael Shields; Editing by John Revill)