The health concerns related to the outbreak of the Coronavirus in China has caused the Shanghai Disney Resort to close to guests during the busy Lunar New Year Festival. For comparison, this is like 4th of July week at Walt Disney World when the parks are normally so busy they have to stop letting in guests.
Here is the full statement from the Shanghai Disneyland website:
“In response to the prevention and control of the disease outbreak and in order to ensure the health and safety of our guests and Cast, Shanghai Disney Resort is temporarily closing Shanghai Disneyland, Disneytown including Walt Disney Grand Theatre and Wishing Star Park, starting January 25, 2020. We will continue to carefully monitor the situation and be in close contact with the local government, and we will announce the reopening date upon confirmation.
“Shanghai Disney Resort will assist in the refund for guests who have purchased tickets for admission to Shanghai Disneyland, have booked a resort hotel, or have booked tickets for Beauty and the Beast Mandarin Production through the original ticket purchase channel, and we will introduce the detailed procedure and guidelines via the resort’s official platforms as soon as possible.
We wish our guests a healthy and happy Spring Festival!”
That’s a pretty big deal for a Disney resort.
It is true that theme parks and resorts are the crossroads of humanity. As recently as last year, Disneyland,, CA has been a focal point for transmission of Measles. It sounds like this Coronavirus is much more conteageous and significantly more deadly.
To prevent the spread of a virus, you need to reduce the risk of contamination via contact with a surface where the virus may be living after a host infected it. Right now entire cities in China are on reduced travel and public transportation is closed to be treated with disinfectant
Disney has to be taking a big revenue hit with this move, but they’re also being good corporate citizens. No word yet on how long this closure is expected to last.
Update: It’s unknown how long Shanghai Disney Resort will stay closed. But it could be weeks before the spread of the virus is under control. Someone did visit the entrance plaza earlier and recorded this video of the announcement playing announcing the park’s closure:
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