It’s all downhill from here.
More than 400 British tourists fled a Swiss ski resort to evade a quarantine order requiring them to stay indoors for ten days before heading down the slopes, according to the Daily Telegraph.
The skiers were ordered to isolate themselves in federal orders in their rooms in Verbier, Wales after the UK announced they were struggling with a more contagious mutation of the coronavirus that has since spread around the world.
But on Sunday, hotel leaders told officials that many guests do not answer the phone in their room or eat breakfast served on trays outside their door.
Authorities found that less than a dozen of the 420 British skiers ordered in quarantine stayed in their rooms in the expensive resort.
Switzerland banned flights from the United Kingdom on December 20 and imposed a ten-day retroactive quarantine for those who had been in the country since December 14. authorities of their means of transport.
Local officials are accused of not doing enough to enforce the quarantine – a complaint by regional leaders, the Telegraph reported.
“Some guests have left by car and are now in quarantine in the UK,” Christophe Darbellay, the president of the Wales government, told the newspaper. “There is a sense of personal responsibility. You can travel across Europe without identifying yourself. The border is a sieve. ‘
Darbellay shifted the blame to the Federal Office of Public Health, saying passenger information was delivered too late, making enforcement ‘unnecessarily difficult’.
Tourism workers say the application of the regulations has been confusing, in part due to inconsistent information from the state.
“It was a drop, drop of information we had, and we informed tourists as well as possible about the rules,” Simon Wiget, director of the Verbier Tourism Bureau, told the Telegraph.
‘We identified about 350 people, but maybe there were 500 people if all the second homeowners and private chalet guests were included, it was impossible to be sure. Maybe some people thought they would escape, but I think the vast majority would have believed that they were acting within the law and acting responsibly.
‘People are basically honest and do not intentionally break the law. It is all very confusing, even for us, “said Wiget.
Anyone caught breaking the quarantine is subject to a $ 11,000 fine.
The FOPH pushed back, saying it was providing local officials with passenger information on all flights from the UK, according to the Telegraph.