Most of its European neighbors can only dream of snow-covered slopes while passing through holiday locks, but Austrians are clogging ski-station parking lots and cable cars, challenging the rules of social detachment when running their own. alpine country.
The Austrians’ relationship with skiing is deeply emotional. For many, it is a birthright and a national pastime, as more than half of their country is mountainous, and they are proud of their Austrian role in the development of sport. Therefore, despite a third national blockade that took effect on Saturday, the country decided that ski resorts could remain open, but only for Austrian residents.
Skiers are forced to wear medical-grade masks while lining up and riding a cable car and gondola, but requests for social distance have been useless. The ski season that started on Christmas Eve resulted in traffic jams and long, crowded cable car lines, prompting police to issue warnings for people to stay home and local authorities to call for security boosters at some resorts.
But for some skiers, the experience of spending a sunny afternoon on the slopes of the Alps – in the midst of confinement, after months of living in the coronavirus pandemic – seemed like an illicit pleasure.
“I know it’s completely crazy to shut everything down, except the ski hills in a confinement,” said Fabian Hasler, a 20-year-old student from Graz, who skis since childhood and spent Sunday at the Tauplitz resort in Styria, east from Salzburg. “But, as a passionate skier, for me that little bit of normality was like an injection of heroin.”
Still, videos of skiers huddled while waiting for the cable cars, huddled between cars in parking lots and climbing up the cable car lines drew criticism from Austria’s European Union neighbors, whose ski slopes remained closed. This also raised eyebrows among the Austrians, who questioned the importance that their leaders attach to the right to speed down a snowy mountain.
“Since yesterday and until January 18, we are not allowed to visit grandparents,” Armin Wolf, who anchored the main nightly newscast of Austria’s public ORF television, wrote on Twitter, along with a photo of people huddled in line at a station skiing at the weekend.
Austria retreated and retreated in its roadblocks, largely shutting down all public life in the spring, only to open it again in the summer in the hope of saving some tourism revenue by welcoming Europeans in search of an escape to the mountains. In mid-November, the country closed again in an effort to reduce the growing number of infections and allow for a more relaxed atmosphere during the Christmas holiday.
But new infections, hospitalizations and deaths remained higher than at the peak in April, so the government decided to end public life after Christmas.
Ski and outdoor rink operators have lobbied for their sports to be allowed during the blockade.
“We have to see it in the full context. There have always been exceptions that allow people to play sports, ”Karl Nehammer, Austria’s interior minister, told the Kronen Zeitung tabloid. “And just as we run here in Vienna, people in the west are skiing.”
One of the worst overcrowding occurred in ski areas easily accessible from urban areas, including Vienna, where people fled to the slopes. Police reports of blocked streets and images of crowded elevator lines prompted local leaders to call for more security and strategies for social detachment on Monday.
“Based on our experience, ski area safety plans will be adapted to ensure social distance, even with a large flow of skiers and other guests,” said Markus Achleitner, Upper Austria’s Minister of Tourism.
“All those responsible are working to be able to offer their guests the most relaxing and safe skiing experience,” said Achleitner. “But I ask everyone to keep their distance while they wait in line and wear their masks.”
German media were quick to notice the chaotic start to the ski season in Austria, with reminders that the Austrian ski resort Ischgl had sown outbreaks across Europe last winter. Focus weekly predicted “Ischgl 2.0”, while Der Spiegel asked, “Nothing learned from Ischgl?”
Although the spread in Ischgl has been associated with bars and night parties at the resort, not the slopes, skiers from Britain, Iceland, the United States and other countries returned from their ski vacation in February and March infected with the virus, accelerating their propagation. It remains an especially sensitive issue in Germany, where hundreds of cases have been traced back to the resort.
Still, the roads leading to the ski areas in western Germany look a lot like those in Austria this weekend, with cars parked for miles. Although the elevators were down and all services, including toilets, remained closed, skiers anxious for a descent on a snowy slope appeared in record numbers
“Please don’t come here,” said the Winterberg ski resort in a post on its Facebook page, pleading with people to stay home or, if they’re already on the road, to see each other.
In early December, France, Italy and Germany agreed to keep their ski areas closed during the holiday, in an effort to slow the pandemic. But Chancellor Sebastian Kurz of Austria fought hard for an industry that was widely appreciated and economically vital.
After weeks of heated debate in the European Union, Kurz found a middle ground in keeping the ski slopes open, but with tourists away. Hotels and restaurants remain closed and a 10-day quarantine has been imposed on anyone entering the country from abroad, in an effort to discourage weekend tourists and hikers, especially from Germany.
Like Austria, Switzerland, which is not a member of the EU, has also decided to allow its ski resorts to remain open, despite having an infection rate much higher than that of most of its neighbors, including Austria.
But after new, more communicable variants of the coronavirus emerged in Britain and South Africa, the Swiss decided on December 20 to stop all fighting in those two countries and demand that anyone who had arrived since December 14 pass 10 quarantined days.
While some skiers decided to pack up and return home immediately, others remained abandoned in their Swiss hotel rooms or rented accommodation, especially at the Verbier ski resort, which is popular with British tourists.
On Sunday, reports spread through the media that hundreds of British tourists defied isolation orders and fled the country in the darkness of the night, possibly crossing the nearby borders with France and Italy. The hotels realized what was happening when they found untouched breakfasts outside the doors of guests who were quarantined.
“It was a big problem – for us too – to receive information, when you just arrived, that you needed to stay in your room. I can understand that anyone finds any chance to return home, ”said Simon Wiget, director of tourism in Verbier. But he said he had no information on how many people had left the country and how they would have done so.
“Normally, they could not travel unless they were quarantined,” he said by phone. “They could not fly back, but it is possible to find a solution, perhaps on the highway.”
Jean-Marc Sandoz, communications representative for the municipality of Bagnes, part of the greater Verbier region, said he also did not have exact figures or details on the number of tourists who may have left.
“It is possible that some of them have been quarantined,” said Sandoz. “They were not prisoners.”