Shanghai Disney closes amid Covid outbreaks
Shanghai, China, Mar 21 (EFE).- Shanghai’s Disney theme park closed its doors temporarily on Monday due to a surge in Covid infections in the city and in the rest of the country.
“Due to the current pandemic situation, Shanghai Disney Resort, including Shanghai Disneyland, Disneytown and Wishing Star Park will be temporarily closed from Monday, March 21, 2022,” the park said in a statement posted on its website on Monday.
“We will continue to monitor the pandemic situation and consult local authorities, and will notify guests as soon as we have a confirmed date to resume operations,” it added.
Shanghai Disneyland also apologized for the inconvenience caused and said that it will provide refunds and exchanges to all those who were planning to visit the park in the coming days.
A total of 758 Covid-19 cases were detected in Shanghai on Sunday, out of which 734 are asymptomatic, according to the latest data provided by the local health commission.
Almost 5,000 new infections were recorded across the mainland on Sunday, including over 2,900 asymptomatic ones.
These levels are the highest in two years in the country, which continues to stick to a zero tolerance strategy against the coronavirus.
This strategy has allowed China to keep cases and deaths at minimum levels compared to other countries through large-scale testing and lockdowns in the event of any small outbreak and an almost total closure of its borders since March 2020.
Several areas in Shanghai where close contacts of the infected have been detected have been locked down in accordance with the “2 + 12” principle, which consists of two days of strict home confinement and another 12 of monitoring during which several tests are conducted.
On Friday, authorities announced that they would also include people living in areas considered “low risk” in the next round of mass testing.
Since Mar. 1, more than 20,000 local infections have been detected in China along with another 17,700 asymptomatic cases – which are not included in the official count – as well as the first two deaths due to the coronavirus since January 2021. EFE
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