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Basel Fasnacht cancelled

Basel Fasnacht (the biggest and bestest carnival in Europe) has been cancelled for this year.
This morning (Friday 28th Feb) the Swiss Federal Health Minister has banned all events with more than 1,000 people present until further notice.
Basel Fasnacht has about 10,000 costumed participants, and 200,000 watching. It is the biggest event of the year ("drey scheenschte Dääg", "the three best days of the year", bigger than Christmas). This year it would have been next Monday (2nd to 4th March). This is very short notice, most of the preparations (crowd barriers etc.) are already in place and there are a lot of long faces around Basel today.

The last time it was cancelled was during World War 2.

See here (newspaper story in German): https://www.bazonline.ch/wissen/coronavirusaus-fuer-basler-fasnacht-bund-verbietet-grossanlaesse-wegen-corona/story/22606916

On a different point, Easyjet is cancelling some flights, mostly to Italy, due to falling passenger numbers.
Yesterday BA report the same about flights to Milan.

Posted by
4071 posts

I heard about that yesterday. What an absolute shame.

I’m still traveling to Luzern in 6 weeks. 🇨🇭

Posted by
1450 posts

At this point I will be suprised if the Olympics are not cancelled or ppd.

Posted by
4071 posts

The Tokyo marathon took place this weekend. Only the professionals participated. The Olympics will not be canceled. As warmer weather comes, so will fewer cases of coronavirus as is the case with the reduction of the spread of influenza as spring’s warmer weather comes.