Fireworks boomed as the visitors at Shanghai Disneyland waited for their COVID-19 test results, surrounded by healthcare workers dressed from head to toe in the white protective suits.
Shanghai Disneyland suddenly announced Sunday evening that
they were no longer accepting any visitors and they were cooperating with an
epidemiological investigation from another province. They then locked down the
park, as Shanghai city healthcare workers and police rushed to the scene to
conduct a mass testing.
The park is shut for Monday and Tuesday as they continue to
cooperate with the pandemic prevention efforts, Shanghai Disneyland said in a
notice on Monday.
The park’s sudden lockdown and temporary closure underscored
just how serious China is about enforcing its zero-tolerance pandemic
prevention strategy.
Globally, many countries have turned to living with the
virus, whether out of choice or necessity, although as virus surges come and
go, many face overburdened healthcare systems, and excess deaths.
In China, which has kept its borders sealed since March
2020, the policy response has been to cut the chain of transmission of the
virus as quickly as possible. With a strict quarantine on arrival policy, the
authorities have aimed to stamp out each local outbreak to zero — helping China
keep its reported totals to relatively lows of 4,636 deaths out of 97,243 cases
since the pandemic began.
The case that prompted Disneyland’s actions involved one individual
whose illness was discovered in the nearby city of Hangzhou and had visited the
theme park on Saturday, local media reported.
For hours on Sunday night, tens of thousands of families and
visitors were stuck in the theme park, as they waited for a negative test
result that would allow them to leave.
One Disney superfan, who gave her last name as Chen, said
that she was inside the park when she heard the announcement to get tested at 5
p.m., but had taken it all in stride.
“No one complained, and everyone behaved really well,” she
said. Chen said she holds an annual membership and visits the park at least
once a month. She is waiting at a hotel for her second COVID test result before
she is allowed to leave and go back to Beijing.
The city announced Monday morning that all 33,863 people who
had been at the park over the weekend had tested negative for COVID-19. They
will be asked to get tested again in the next two weeks and monitor their
health.
Shanghai Disneyland is just the latest example of how far
Chinese authorities will go to stop the spread of the virus.
Last Thursday, Beijing Railway authorities notified health
authorities in Jinan to stop a train that was traveling from Shanghai to
Beijing because one passenger was a close contact of someone who had tested
positive for COVID-19.
Jinan health authorities then sent health care workers,
transportation workers and police rushing to the station to quarantine the
passengers and disinfect the train. They sent 212 people into centralized
quarantine, including the close contact. -AP