Beijing | Disneyland was closed in Shanghai on Monday after a single case of COVID was detected in a person who visited the amusement park, as Chinese authorities seek to stem a limited outbreak.
The first country affected by the coronavirus from the end of 2019, China is also the first country to have largely controlled the epidemic from the spring of 2020, after the adoption of very restrictive measures, including the virtual closure of borders.
The authorities continue to follow a policy of zero contamination, further reinforced in the run-up to the Winter Olympics in Beijing next February.
The Asian giant has been on its teeth since the reappearance of Covid cases at the end of October in the north of the country, including in the capital. Ninety-two cases were reported Monday for the past 24 hours, the highest toll since mid-September.
In this context, the Shanghai Disneyland Park, opened in 2016, had to close its doors after the discovery of a positive case in a former visitor, when she returned to a province near Shanghai.
The reopening date has not been specified.
As of Sunday, the park proceeded to the screening of its staff and visitors. Nearly 34,000 people had been tested as of Monday morning, Shanghai city hall announced.
In a video released by official media, employees in protective suits can be seen testing visitors, amid fireworks above Disneyland’s iconic castle.
All the tests were negative, but those affected must refrain from going to school or their workplace for at least 48 hours and undergo further tests.
Two days earlier, the Universal Studios park in Beijing, which opened at the end of September, had announced contact cases among its visitors from the previous weekend.
Some 6 million Chinese in total are currently in lockdown due to the latest outbreak, most in the large city of Lanzhou, 1,200 km west of Beijing.
The situation is “serious and complex”, admitted a spokesperson for the Ministry of Health on Saturday, stressing the speed of circulation of the virus.