More than 400 British tourists “escaped” from the exclusive Swiss ski resort of Verbier, after being ordered to be quarantined there.
Visitors were ordered by Swiss authorities to isolate themselves for 10 days in their accommodation, after the United Kingdom announced that it had detected a new highly transmissible mutation of the coronavirus.
The discovery of the mutation, which swept across the UK, leading to rising COVID-19 infection rates, led many countries, including Switzerland, to close their borders to British visitors.
Since midnight on December 20, Switzerland has banned flights from the UK, but has also instituted a retroactive quarantine.
This meant that about 420 Britons who had already arrived in the village of Verbier – one of the most important ski resorts in Europe and a popular destination with British kings – were told that they would have to return immediately to their accommodation and avoid any contact with the outside world. .
Well-trodden visitors had other ideas. Until Sunday morning, the hoteliers informed the officials that the breakfast trays were left untouched outside the guest rooms and the calls to the rooms remained unanswered, Daily Telegraph reports.
The newspaper claims that of the 420 Britons identified by the authorities as being in the luxury resort when the quarantine was hastily applied, less than a dozen remained until Sunday. Implemented laws would mean a breach of quarantine could result in a fine of up to 10,000 Swiss francs ($ 11,220).
Some guests may have left legally under a measure announced by the Swiss authorities on Christmas Eve, which allowed quarantined Britons to return home if they informed the regional authorities about their mode of transport.
Some of the affected British tourists from Verbier left immediately, while others blocked it for a short time before giving up and fleeing, according to a local newspaper.
“Many of them were quarantined a day before going unnoticed under the cover of darkness,” said Jean-Marc Sandoz, a spokesman for the larger municipality. The Sunday newspaper.
He called the whole situation “the worst week our community has ever had.”
Sandoz told ATS news agency: “When they saw that the food trays remained untouched, the hoteliers noticed that the customers had left.”
He said he believed less than 10 people would still be in quarantine, and the rest would have left or their time in solitary confinement would have ended, adding: “We can’t blame them. In most cases, quarantine was unbearable. Imagine four people staying in a 20-square-meter hotel room. “
Christophe Darbellay, the president of the local government, said: “There is a sense of personal responsibility. You can travel all over Europe without having to identify yourself. The border is a sieve. “
He criticized the Swiss Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH), saying that information about passengers was provided too late. He said: “Passenger data was missing. Our work has been unnecessarily difficult. “
FOPH denied this and said it had requested airline data for the 92 flights in the UK that had arrived since December 14 and provided the cantons with information on Wednesday.
However, Simon Wiget, director of the Verbier Tourist Office, said for Daily Telegraph that the rules were confusing.
“I called all the hotels and tour operators and said that people who traveled from the UK should notify the Swiss authorities. We identified about 350 people, but maybe there were 500 people if all the owners of second-hand houses and guests with private cottages were included; it was impossible to be sure.
“Perhaps a few people might have thought they were escaping, but I think the vast majority would have thought they were acting in accordance with the law and responsible. People are practically honest and do not intentionally break the law. Everything is very confusing, even for us. The new rules have been set in a hurry and the situation is changing so fast that tourists have done everything they can. “
Switzerland has been heavily criticized for keeping ski resorts open during the pandemic, with critics attributing rising infection rates to the decision.