China locks down tourists at Shanghai Disney again to contain coronavirus

As the Universal park in Beijing reopened its doors on Monday (31), the Disney conglomerate in Shanghai and a large Apple factory in Zhengzhou saw their gates being abruptly locked.

Exactly a year after its first closure, the Disney park in Shanghai has again abruptly locked its gates to contain coronavirus infections, in yet another stringent enforcement of China’s Covid zero policy. All visitors within the park were ordered to remain in the park until they tested negative for Covid-19.

At 11:39 am local time (0:39 am in Brazil), the tourist complex announced that it would close its main theme park and surrounding facilities until further notice was issued by health authorities. A forecast for the reopening of the complex was not specified. Last year, 34,000 tourists were trapped inside the facility after a single case was detected across Shanghai.

The number of tourists held back was not reported, but the local government recorded 10 cases of coronavirus on Sunday (30) that would have been transmitted locally, all asymptomatic. In Beijing, the Universal park was closed on Thursday (27) and reopened on Monday, also after the detection of cases in the Chinese capital.

In Zhengzhou, in eastern China, the announcement of measures to restrict movement due to the coronavirus caused employees at a Foxconn industrial plant, which produces iPhones and employs about 200,000 people, to jump over the factory fences to flee. Experts point out that cellphone production at this factory could fall by as much as 30% next month, opening up room for expansion for the competing facility in Taiwan.

The exodus in industry prompted neighboring towns to draw up plans to isolate these migrant workers as they tried to return to their homes.

In Shanghai, the government told residents it had barred access to Disney and stressed to visitors that clearance was conditional on testing negative for coronavirus. The same determination was given to all those who have visited the park since last Thursday (27th) — they must now undergo three tests within the next three days.

Despite the blocked exits, the park maintained the operation of some leisure options. A Disney spokesperson said the resort was operating with limited services. On Saturday (29), the tourist complex had already announced the reduction of its workforce to cooperate with the measures to contain the virus.

The Disney complex was closed between March and July this year, during which Shanghai was under a severe lockdown. Asked by the Reuters news agency about the number of visitors locked inside the gates, the complex’s administrator did not respond.