Shanghai Disney Resort on Oct. 31 abruptly shut down to comply with pandemic prevention requirements, underscoring the disruptions business face as the regime vows to stamp out new infections.
Guests are ordered to stay inside the theme park to take a coronavirus test and wait for a negative result to exit the gate, according to a notice from Shanghai authorities.
The scene evoked the memories of the snap lockdown from Halloween 2021 when more than 30,000 visitors were trapped inside the Disney Resort after a confirmed infection was found to have visited the theme park.
“History repeated itself. On the same day last year, [we] were undergoing a nucleic acid test when fireworks lit up the night sky above,” a user wrote on the microblogging platform Weibo.
Neither the company nor the Shanghai authorities provide further details, including the number of guests trapped inside or potential new infection registered inside the park.
Shanghai reported ten locally transmitted cases for Oct. 30, all of which it said were people without symptoms. The official count, however, has increasingly come into question by residents, given the Chinese regime’s history of downplaying and covering up information about outbreaks across the country.
A health worker takes a swab sample from a man to test for the Covid-19 coronavirus in the Huangpu district in Shanghai on October 24, 2022. Hector Retamal/AFP via Getty Images
Shanghai officials said in the notice that people who had visited the park since Oct. 27 need to get three PCR tests in the next three days.
The Disney Resort, including Shanghai Disneyland, Disneytown, and Wishing Star Park will be immediately closed from Monday, the company said in a separate notice on its website. “We will notify guests as soon as we have a confirmed date to resume operations,” it added.
Shanghai Disney Resort endured a more than three-month-long closure this spring when the authorities locked down the financial hub and confined its 25 million residents at home under the zero-COVID policy.
The zero-tolerance tactics have taken a heavy toll on the country’s economy. Data released on Monday showed that Chinese factory activity unexpectedly fell in October.
Production at the main iPhone manufacturing facility in the central Chinese city of Zhengzhou is expected to be dented next month due to the city’s fresh lockdown. Thousands of workers climbed over fences to run out of the plant during the weekend. Several workers told The Epoch Times that people who tested positive were struggling to get food and medical care.
Despite the economic and human costs, the CCP showed no signs of easing the zero-COVID policy at the twice-a-decade Party Congress earlier this year, dashing hopes of foreign investors and countless Chinese residents frustrated by repeated lockdowns and testing.
Earlier this month, the Universal Resort in the country’s capital of Beijing closed for five days after a guest tested positive.
Reuters contributed to this report.
Dorothy Li
Author
Dorothy Li is a reporter for The Epoch Times. Contact Dorothy at [email protected].
