Corona virus: skiing area Ischgl aborts season on March 14 (in 2 days)

"Relax, if you can."
(Ischgl marketing slogan)
Glad to have visited last January.
Skiing in all of Italy has already shut down. There is a big group from Chicago in Zermatt now, then scheduled to go to Berlin next week.

The skiing season is ended not only in Ischgl, but in the whole State Tyrol, as well as in the State Salzburg.

All indoor activities attended by a crowd of more than 100 people are prohibited, as well as all outdoor activities of 500 people or more.

We returned home yesterday from Fusch an der Großglocknerstraße (near Zell am See). We were planning to stay until Tuesday, but the hotel notified us Thursday evening that they were closing after breakfast on Sunday. Sunday is the last day Province of Salzburg ski areas/lifts will be open. Fusch was very peaceful and quiet with the Großglocknerstraße closed until mid May. It becomes a closed/dead end valley. Traffic seemed a little crazier than normal on the way back to the Oberpfalz. There was one roll-through Police check near Oberaudorf where we entered Germany, but we have seen that before.

Info: Since this morning (Sat March 14) German Robert-Koch-Institute (www.rki.de) lists Austrian state Tirol as risk area.

My mother will come back from that area, so I will prepare her home little bit before she will arrive.

2 weeks quarantine will not please her but I guess and hope she will survive it.

Some friends just left yesterday going to Serfaus, so they should have arrived by now. Looks like they will get to ski tomorrow, then have to depart on Monday.

Switzerland also closed all ski areas effect immediately.

From Aletsch Arena website:

“13/03/2020

The Federal Council of the Swiss Confederation decided on March 13 that the ski areas in Switzerland should be closed immediately. This will take effect immediately and will
expire on April 30, 2020. The 2019/20 winter season will also end early in the Aletsch Arena.”

I skied Ischgl a few years ago, skiing into the Swiss side was awesome and I have wanted to ski Switzerland ever since. Almost got there this year - we canceled after checking-in for the flight when Level 3 and a pandemic were declared. So frustrating.

Stay healthy!

Just FYI: The Bavarian Health Minister recommended today that anyone returning from Italy, Austria and Switzerland should quarantine themselves whether they have symptoms or not. The disease is spreading rapidly, especially in Italy and Switzerland, and in Austria the province of Tyrol is particularly affected. Schau ma mal dann seng mas scho...

If you mean Jens Spahn he is Health Minister of Germany.

This is btw what they say since weeks, I posted a flyer of RKI which says exactly this.

Yes it was Jens Spahn the German Health Minister not only Bavaria. I stand corrected. I think the difference/emphasis I noticed was you should self-quarantine now even if you do not have symptoms, and Tyrol is specified directly along with all of Austria. Spring cleaning and garden work at home the next few weeks. Our trip to Singapore in early April is cancelled (closed to Germany as of 15 March). Next planned trips are Switzerland and then Salzkammergut in May, so we'll see what goes over the course of the next weeks.

This article popped up in my news feed yesterday.
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/europe/ibiza-of-the-alps-ski-resort-blamed-for-spread-of-coronavirus-1.4207324

Similar situation for Mexican skiers returning from Vail, CO.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-19/vail-emerges-as-virus-hotbed-for-mexican-skiers-returning-home

Business interests in skiing resorts slowed down proper measures to reduce the spreading of the Corona virus.
But the actions of the Austrian government have set a strict framework to master the crisis.

Other countries, like US and GB, are not well prepared and reluctant to admit the severity of the situation.

This report by the Imperial College London predicts drastically what Great Britain will be facing during the next months.

The population of the US is five times the population of Great Britain. It is not entirely false to multiply the numbers given in the report by five to get an idea what in US will be coming.

Don't be deceived by the still low numbers of infections and casualties. The peak of the crisis is predicted for end of May to mid June, i.e. we are still three months away from the worst.

Stay safe!

It seems that one après-ski-bar had the first positive test of a barkeeper on March 7. Even in this case the reaction was too late and too slow.

Currently they do investigations on top if a different member of staff was already tested positively end of February without informing authorities. It seems also that they were informed by health azthorities of Iceland and Norway.

If this is true Ischgl would have lost its reputation for careful tourism completely if they also exchanged short messages on this.

btw: there is no hope that this will disappear from media because two well known TV journalists were infected likely in Ischgl; of of them is Christof Lang working for RTL group (5 TV channels in German free TV).

Source: Focus article naming several other sources.

If this is true Ischgl would have lost its reputation for careful tourism completely

What is "careful tourism"? Whatever maybe went wrong in Ischgl, it is under scrutiny of law enforcement already. Certainly there was a pressure by local businesses not to end the skiing season prematurely. But this kind of pressure against the shutdown of business life is rapidly increasing in Germany now.

I do not think, when we all have mastered the crisis, that towns/cities like Ischgl, Milano, Venice, Florence, Madrid, New York, etc. will have lost their appeal to tourists due to some current incapabilities.

Canada's Global News chief meteorologist Anthony Farnell recently tested positive for COVID-19 following a ski vacation in the Austrian Alps during February. He had returned home to Toronto on March 1, 2020.

https://globalnews.ca/news/6722254/commentary-ski-trip-coronavirus-diagnosis/

Is anyone seeing this reported elsewhere?

the Local

It doesn't seem to be getting better for Ischgl.

What happened exactly in Ischgl is under investigation.

In my opinion, the thought lawsuit has no chance to prevail. In Austrian law there is no "class action" similar to US law.

How many Americans will sue Trump for downplaying the crisis, thus delaying necessary measures?

How many Americans will sue Trump for downplaying the crisis, thus delaying necessary measures?

Ask again on November 4th.

"It was handled perfectly."

"You're not in America where you sue because your coffee's hot, Madam."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4GLFLXMFBU

Filmed in Ischgl and yes, that is Kristofer Hivju as the Piste Maintenance Supervisor.

Fans of Kristofer Hivju (and skiing), consider checking this out while you're sheltering in place:
"The Last King", a Norwegian ski-and-sword epic adventure film set in the 13th Century.

If interested, see my review (over in the "Recommended Books & Movies" forum: Movie: The Last King.
Theatrical trailer here.

Public German TV was doing a deep dive data analytics based on 4000 Instagram posts with pictues from Ischgl between end of Feb and first days of March and created a map showing where the Ischgl tourists in Europe were coming from and how their homebases are spreaded in Europe.
https://www.tagesschau.de/investigativ/br-recherche/ischgl-corona-101.html

Another part of the arcticle: "At the same time, the press release of the Regional Health Department of Tyrol contained the reassuring sentence: "A transmission of the coronavirus to guests of the bar is rather unlikely from a medical point of view. Just how wrong this assessment was, was to become apparent as early as Monday: 15 more people from the barkeeper's surroundings had become infected."

Also a lot of Germany's 2nd wave Corona cases can be tracked back to Ischgl. "The BR evaluated German press reports and found 341 cases from 101 German districts and cities in which travellers in Ischgl were presumably infected "

In total the impression arises that Austrian hosts and authorities acted irresponsibly - and whole Europe pays the price.

The Corona virus was brought to Ischgl by Italian tourists.

You can't blame Ischgl alone for the current situation in Europe. A lot of authorities in several countries did underestimate the threat although it was known what happened in China, including Germany, where the different states still cannot agree on the same measures.

The Corona virus was brought to Ischgl by Italian tourists.

Any credible source for that or just your opinion because Italy started earlier and is close?

Nobody blames Austria alone but the handling of area Tirol & community Ischgl was extremely lame, unprofessional and greedy - well knowing what will happen.

Germany:
I hope you realized that the first case of Corona was successfully isolated on German ground (otherwise search for Webasto), also the early re-transport and quarantine of Germans in Wuhan was without any other infections.

Example: After first case of Heinsberg people were officially informed the next day. Schools and public buildings were closed on day 3 after the case was diagnosed (wife was diagnosed positive 1 day before that). That is a different speed of information and reaction.

If you speak about the differences of restrictions in German states: these were questions like when to close schools, when to skip larger events (most were cancelled already since end of Feb, e. g. ITB, Light + Building, ...) and the question of "Kontaktverbot" versus "Ausgangssperre" - different approaches how to reduce infections.

The authorities did a good job their to spread the virus. They more or less kicked out infected guests who suddenly had to travel trough the countries with public transportation. Still they dont want to admit that they did some mistakes...

Some more info on that one:
https://www.tagesschau.de/ausland/ischgl-corona-103.html

Based on this patient zero was coming from Switzerland to Ischgl (infected since Feb 5) - she worked in an apres-ski-bar.

Epidemiologists are collecting and evaluating all available data from the Ischgl area to backtrack the routes of infection. Due to a typo in the numbers submitted (Feb. 5 instead of Mar. 5) a Swiss woman was erroneously tagged patient 0.