Shanghai’s Disneyland closed amid lockdown, visitors unable to leave

SHANGHAI: China’s zero-Covid policy led to an abrupt shutdown of Disneyland in Shanghai.

As per The Hollywood Reporter, The Walt Disney Co.’s flagship Disney Resort closed its doors on Monday, with all guests at the time of the announcement required to stay inside the park until they could present a negative test result.

Several images and videos went viral in which the guests are seen running to the locked gates of the theme park in hopes of escape.

Breaking：Guests entered park earlier today were required to have PCR test and didnt leave park untill the result came out. They were leaving the park about 1 hr ago #Halloween #Halloween2022 #ShanghaiDisneyland #SHDL #上海ディズニーランド #ディズニーランド #上海ディズニ pic.twitter.com/OpgefYWz3z

— DONGDONG (@gourmetdyy) October 31, 2022

A notice posted to Shanghai Disney’s official social media accounts Monday said that the sprawling theme park and surrounding facilities would be shut until further notice. The theme park reopened in June after being closed for 101 days during the city’s brutal lockdown this spring.

“We apologise for the inconvenience and will provide refunds or exchanges for all guests impacted during this period”, Disney said in a statement. “We will notify guests as soon as we have a confirmed date to resume operations.”

Shanghai has amassed 97 cases of Covid in the past 28 days, and a total of 64,282 cases with 595 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University. Across China, there have been 1,78,178 cases and 212 deaths in the past month, New York Post reported.

Last month, the country’s ruling Communist Party and its leader Xi Jinping signalled that there will be no easing up of the zero-Covid policy, calling it a “people’s war to stop the spread of the virus”.

Across the country, around 200 lockdowns have been implemented in recent days — the majority of this affecting communities that have been marked as high or medium risk. Residents in different areas are subject to different rules, depending on whether they are in a low, medium or high-risk zone.

Recently, droves of migrant workers attempted to flee the lockdown situation and return to their hometowns. Visuals shared online indicate that workers at Apple’s largest assembly site in Zhengzhou broke out of the facilities to escape the ‘zero-Covid’ lockdown. (ANI)