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Hundreds of British tourists forced to self-quarantine at the Swiss ski resort of Verbier fled at night instead of watching their holidays go downhill, the local municipality said.
Around 200 of the 420 British tourists affected at the luxurious alpine ski resort gave up shelter from the dark, the Sonntags Zeitung newspaper reported.
It comes as 357 more people died from Covid-19 in the UK, bringing the total deaths there to 71,109. Another 41,385 laboratory-confirmed coronavirus cases in the last 24 hours were also confirmed there.
British tourists in search of snow were going to fly to Swiss ski resorts before the flight ban due to the new Covid-19 variant sweeping England put those plans on ice.
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Those already on the slopes were subject to a new ruling from the Swiss government for a 10-day retroactive quarantine for anyone arriving from Britain since December 14.
Some of the affected British tourists in Verbier left immediately, while others held on for a bit before leaving.
“Many of them remained in quarantine for a day before leaving unnoticed in the dark,” Jean-Marc Sandoz, spokesman for the municipality of Bagnes, told SZ.
He called the whole situation “the worst week our community has ever experienced.”
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British tourists typically make up 21% of Verbier’s clientele, with the majority starting to arrive just after Christmas.
Voted the best ski resort in Switzerland for the past two years, Verbier touts itself for offering “adrenaline-fueled thrills, simple pleasures and an elegant lifestyle.”
The Verbier Tourist Office has been holding daily crisis phone meetings to try to deal with the changing coronavirus landscape.
“It was when they saw that the food trays remained intact that the hoteliers noticed that the customers had left,” Sandoz told the ATS news agency.
He said that, according to a survey conducted on Saturday in the hotels of the ski resort, fewer than 10 people would still be in quarantine.
The rest would have left or their quarantine time would have expired.
“We can’t blame them. In most cases, the quarantine was unsustainable. Imagine four people staying in a 20-square-meter hotel room,” Sandoz said.
He said tourists left feeling “a bit angry at Switzerland” and with the feeling of having been “trapped.”
Flights between Switzerland and the two countries were halted on Monday, but the first outbound flights from Zurich to Britain resumed on Thursday.
Two cases of the new variant of the British coronavirus have been detected in Switzerland and one in neighboring Liechtenstein, the Swiss Health Ministry said yesterday.
Two cases of the new South African variant of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, have also been detected, the ministry said.
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