The snowiest Switzerland started the year as it ended it: in search of more than 400 British and South African skiers and tourists who fled the quarantine they had to serve in the Valais region, where some of the most famous ski resorts in the country are located. .
The attempt to locate these tourists began after a new strain of the virus was detected in the United Kingdom on December 19, 2020, which put the rest of European countries on alert.
At that time, another variant, from South Africa, was also detected in the British country.
Two weeks later, Switzerland has registered seven cases of the British strain, one of them in Valais.
“The patient has been identified and all investigations are underway,” reported Jean-Bernard Moix, Valais Health Promotion Director.
Escaped tourists face fines of up to 10,000 francs (9,200 euros), although it is not clear how they will be executed.
The region from which they fled, meanwhile, is beginning to be covered by the stigma of being a possible window of the new coronavirus in Switzerland, as happened in March 2020 to the luxurious Austrian ski resort of Ischgl.
Switzerland has been heavily criticized for keeping ski resorts open.
The population is divided on whether these should be closed or not, as has been done with restaurants and other leisure spaces until mid-January.
Swiss "winter tourism represents around 1% of GDP, but in mountainous regions such as the Valais and the Grisons of 10% ,
" he told
Swissinfo
Laurent Vanat, specialized consultant and author of a report on tourism snow and mountain.
Switzerland is the sixth country in the world with the most ski resorts, with almost ninety.
The first are the United States, Japan, France, Italy and Austria.
The story of the British and South African skiers who sought a white Christmas in the Swiss Alps fleeing the semi-confinements of 2020 and ended up in quarantine but escaped in the dark and cold began on December 21.
They looked for ways still unknown to evade the 14-day quarantine imposed by Switzerland in an untimely way.
The measure surprised them in Switzerland on December 21, due to the new variant of covid-19 discovered in England.
That same day about 50 escaped, but in the end only between 12 and 15 remained. British tourists this season represent about 21%.
The rout of British skiers took place between Saturday 26 and Sunday 27 December in various ski resorts, especially in the luxurious Verbier, ranked as the best in the country.
It is a town of white mountains overlooking Mont Blanc.
It is in southern Switzerland, in the municipality of Bagnes in the canton of Valais, near the border with France, where the escaped skiers would have crossed.
In France the ski slopes are closed.
The regional and Swiss governments are still investigating what really happened.
According to the newspaper
Neue Zürcher Zeitung
, one of the most important in Switzerland, some tourists would have left the country correctly since the quarantine order of that December 21 said that they had to be confined no later than midnight that day, and they would have appeared in that window between the announcement and the appointed time.
The alarm went off when trays of food that waiters left on the doors of British guest rooms remained for hours without being removed.
He continued with the unsuccessful calls to the rooms.
And it was confirmed when when opening the doors they discovered that there was no one in them, even some beds were intact.
To leave no doubts about their escape, some guests, already outside of Switzerland, called hotels to ask for the refund of money for the unused days, according to the BBC.
No one saw anything?
Verbier Tourism Director Simon Wiget told Reuters that his office reported the government's new restrictive measures on hotels but that they were not policemen.
"It has been the worst week our community has had," says Jean-Marc Sandoz, spokesman for Bagnés, in a statement.
And he complains that the municipalities of the region have not received any help to implement the new protocols.
Some Swiss, including Sandoz, understand anger and running away.
Among other things, says the spokesman, because several people, including children, had to be locked in rooms of 20 square meters for several days.
Blow to the ski season
Nobody imagined anything of the kind.
Quite the opposite.
On the first day of December a great snowfall covered almost the entire country.
Promise of a good ski season for a country alien to the controversy of the European Union that called for the closure of the slopes to avoid sources of contagion.
The objective was to recover what was lost the previous season when everything was interrupted by the pandemic.
The slopes were opened little by little from the first week of December.
But on Sunday 20, before the increase in infections in the country and the announcement of the variant in the United Kingdom, the Government tightened the covid-19 measures in all areas.
That Sunday he prohibited access to flights from the British country and South Africa;
and on Monday the 21st, he ordered to quarantine all the people who had arrived since December 14, retroactively for 10 days.
The strange thing about the escape is that on Christmas Eve the Swiss Government modified the restrictions so that the British could return to their country under certain "special measures", such as those who had served 10 days of quarantine or report how they were going to return to be able to follow up.
The problems for Verbier have not gone away with British tourists.
The ski slope is seen by many as a source of covid.
"Many Swiss canceled their holidays," laments Sandoz.
Information about the coronavirus
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