Coronavirus: link to confirmed case closes Shanghai Disneyland, visitors tested before exit
- Nearly 34,000 people had to undergo testing before they could leave the theme park on Sunday
- New daily high of 59 locally acquired infections reported across China, says National Health Commission
The managers of Shanghai Disneyland and Disneytown, an extension of the park that includes shops and restaurants, announced at 6pm on Sunday that entry to all facilities would be immediately suspended.
Staff and visitors, many of whom were celebrating the resort’s Halloween carnival, were tested for the virus at the exits. Those people must have another test 24 hours after the first, and do 12 days of self-monitoring if both tests come back negative, according to a statement from Shanghai Disneyland.
All 33,863 of the “relevant personnel” present in the park tested negative for the virus before leaving, according to results published at 8am by the Shanghai office for coronavirus prevention and control.
The office issued an emergency notice for those who visited Disneyland on Saturday and Sunday, requiring anyone who attended events in the area to be tested for the virus at their nearest hospital.
The news comes after Hangzhou reported a confirmed case of the virus, a person who had been at the park on Saturday after arriving in Shanghai from Shangrao, Jiangxi province, by train on Friday.
Shanghai Disneyland announced it would be closed on Monday and Tuesday, and would provide refunds or exchanges for guests who had already bought tickets for these dates, according to its official website. The theme park has not confirmed when it will reopen, stating only that it would notify guests when they could visit.
What do the new US coronavirus travel rules mean for foreigners?
Zhang Wenhong, a respected infectious disease expert known as “China’s Dr Fauci” who serves on the national anti-epidemic task force, commended the park’s prompt response to the reported case as well as continuing its nightly fireworks show, even as testing took place.
“All tourists can now sleep peacefully, but countless of my colleagues will continue to work on completing standard procedures for virus prevention and control, just to make this city and the lives of people in this city a little better,” he wrote in a post on Weibo.
“Thank you for today’s inextinguishable fireworks, which let us see mankind’s calmness in the face of disasters, and confidence in the future.”
Chinese city on emergency footing to fend off coronavirus outbreak
China is battling a nationwide Covid-19 outbreak that was initially linked to Shanghai tourists who had visited the north of the country. The National Health Commission on Monday said 59 new locally transmitted cases were reported across the country the previous day, with 20 imported infections. There were 12 asymptomatic cases, which are not included in the official tally.
Of the cases imported from elsewhere, nine were in Shanghai and eight in Zhejiang, where the train passenger who was the sole local case in Shanghai was intercepted at a railway station. The passenger was travelling from Shanghai to Shangrao in Jiangxi and was listed as a close contact of other cases in the province. Eight other passengers travelling in the same carriage will be monitored as close contacts.
