HUNDREDS of British tourists have covertly fled a luxury Swiss ski resort after the authorities told them to quarantine.
Roughly 420 holiday-makers from Britain were staying in Verbier over the Christmas holidays despite being urged not to travel in the middle of a global pandemic.
Late last week they were told to self-isolate as part of Switzerland’s response to the discovery of a new variant of the coronavirus.
About 50 fled immediately, with the others disappearing over the weekend. Local news sites suggest that less than a dozen were still at the resort yesterday.
With flights cancelled, it’s not entirely clear where they’ve fled to.
Speaking on Monday, Alain Berset, the Swiss home affairs minister said the federal government was aware of the situation.
“That is of course a problem. I don't know where they have gone. I think they just went home. But the federal government has no options, we are not responsible for enforcement. We had to react quickly that everything wasn't going perfectly, that's clear,” he said.
Hoteliers only noticed guests had secretly left when calls to rooms went unanswered and meals left outside doors were untouched.
"Many of them stayed in quarantine for a day before they left unnoticed under the cover of darkness,” municipal communications officer Jean-Marc Sandoz told local paper SonntagsZeitung.
Tourists from the UK make up around a fifth of the resort’s holidaymakers.
Verbier is favourite of the British upper-class. Prince Andrew, Richard Branson and James Blunt all own chalets.
Two cases of the new British coronavirus variant have been detected in Switzerland and one in neighbouring Liechtenstein, the Swiss health ministry said on Sunday.
At least 92 flights went from the UK to Switzerland between December 14 and 20, bringing some 10,000 tourists from Britain into the country, German news site Bild.de reported.
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