Reports from China say that a team of police are guarding all routes in and out of Chongli, the ski competition venue of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.
It has separately been announced that Chongli and other Chinese ski resorts may begin re-opening soon and (separately again) that the Chinese government will compensate ski areas closed by the epidemic control measures in the country.
Police teams check the body temperature of every person passing through with the aim of preventing anyone carrying the COVID-19 virus from entering the region.
Police took up their round-the-clock patrols on 31st January, just as the Chinese government took steps to contain the virus including shutting down China’s 700+ ski areas.
What were to have been the first ever World Cup Downhill ski races, test events for the 2022 Olympics, due to be staged in early February, two years ahead of the start of the Winter Olympics and Paralympics, also had to be cancelled.
Just prior to that Chongli (pictured above at the start of the season) had reported a doubling in skier number during January compared to 2019, following the opening of a new multi-billion dollar high-speed rail link from Beijing on December 30th.
“Thanks to the strict quarantine measures, there are zero coronavirus reports in the mountain town,” China’s Xinhua news reports.
The website reports police were initially stationed in cars, but a more permanent building has now been set up. Temperatures in the area have dropped to -40C at times and maximum police shifts are two hours, due to the extreme cold.
In a separate report, an official in Chongli is quoted as saying that a plan for resuming operations at the ski area has been formulated. It will require non-local residents to make online reservations, fill in detailed personal health and transportation information, and use e-tickets to enter the resorts.
Each ski resort will be controlled in different zones for prevention and control of the epidemic. Visitors will be put in designated hotels while some non-essential facilities like bars will remain temporarily closed.
Elsewhere in Eastern Asia the governor of Hokkaido in Japan, where about 80 Coronavirus cases have been confirmed so far (all but one, who was Chinese, being Japanese nationals), and home to dozens of ski areas including Niseko, has declared a state of emergency. However this does not appear to be impacting the operation of ski resorts in the prefecture and the official advice is the usual advice, to avoid crowded indoor spaces and self-quarantine if you feel ill.
