That was until this year, when a single confirmed case sent the park, and its adjacent shopping district, Disneytown, into a snap lockdown Sunday evening.
The extreme measure saw tens of thousands of visitors and staff forced to undergo coronavirus testing before they were allowed to leave the park, as police blocked the exits and secured the grounds.
In a video that’s since gone viral on Chinese social media, crowds are shown lining up in front of makeshift testing sites, as health workers in full personal protective equipment (PPE) watch on. In the background colorful fireworks light up the night sky above a storybook castle.
The surreal juxtaposition of an impromptu mass testing drive and a Disney fireworks show is the latest example of how China’s stringent zero-Covid policy has permeated every corner of Chinese citizens’ lives.
In its public statement, Shanghai Disney did not offer detailed reasons for the shutdown, only saying it was to “cooperate with the pandemic investigation in other provinces and cities.”
But a local health commission in the neighboring province of Jiangsu said a woman who visited Shanghai Disney on Saturday tested positive for Covid-19.
The woman had taken a train to Shanghai from Jiangxi province on Friday. During her return trip the next day, she was found to be a close contact of a confirmed case in Jiangxi and taken off the train for quarantine. She tested positive on Sunday and had a fever, and was diagnosed as a confirmed case, according to the municipal government of Hangzhou, where the woman alighted.
As of Monday morning, 33,863 people who were at Shanghai Disneyland and Disneytown over the weekend had been tested, and all results came back negative, according to the Shanghai government. But…
Source : cnn
