Responding to a novel pandemic took many governments unaware, and especially in federal countries the interplay among executives at different levels proved difficult and illustrated the inherent tensions in federations. Drawing on data covering the temporal evolution of the epidemiological, economic and political situation at the cantonal level in Switzerland, we assess how federations dealt with the crisis situation. We find that while the federal government was in various instances accused of encroaching on the prerogatives of the cantonal governments, our empirical analysis of the latter's pandemic responses suggests that cantons equally engaged in burden-shifting and shirking. Our findings also suggest that non-pharmaceutical measures affected the fiscal measures taken by cantonal governments.