Shanghai officials locked down the Shanghai Disney Resort on October 31st, refusing to allow theme park guests to leave until they had tested negative for COVID-19.
As Reuters and Deadline report, the strict measures stemmed from China’s controversial zero-COVID policy. Officials said they were spurred to action after a 31-year-old woman who had visited the park in recent days tested positive for COVID-19.
At 11:39 a.m. on Monday, they closed the gates to the main theme park and all surrounding grounds. According to unverified videos on social media, crowds of resort guests rushed towards the entrance to avoid the lockdown, only to find the gates already closed.
Those in the park were allowed to continue going on rides until testing concluded by 8:30 p.m. that night, at which time the remaining guests were finally able to go home.
Everyone inside the park tested negative. However, the Shanghai government will continue to monitor those people, and has required them and anyone who visited the Disney Resort since October 27th to take three COVID-19 tests in three days.
Shanghai reported a total of 10 cases of COVID-19 on October 30th, all in individuals who were said to be asymptomatic.
President Xi Jinping said at the Communist Party Congress in October that China would remain committed to the zero-COVID policy for the foreseeable future. “We don’t expect the zero-COVID policy to be abandoned until 2024, which means virus disruptions will keep in-person services activity subdued,” noted Zichun Huang, economist at Capital Economics.
Source by consequence.net
