Lauberhorn Racers Cancelled, Moved to Kitzbuhel

The B.1.1.7 variant has now been discovered in St. Moritz, the guests and staff in 2 hotels have been put in to quarantine. The ski schools in St. Moritz have also been closed. Starting tomorrow, mass testing of St Moritz's population will be carried out.

dachstein west skier wrote:Really annoying we could have had a brit win a FIS event for the first time, Dave Ryding finished 7th today at Flachau but had it been held at Kitzbuhel his favourite run on the tour he might have won with our local ski hero Marcel Hirsher retired will watch ski sunday to see what they have to say about it if anything.

Anything MIGHT happen in ski racing but that's quite a stretch to be honest. Dave's outstanding race at Kitzbuhel was in 2017, some time ago. He MIGHT have finished anywhere in the top 20 if the race had been at Kitzbuhel. There are powerful teams from Austria, Switzerland, Norway, France and others to contend with. Dave Ryding does exceptionally well to compete with them given the lack of team and other resources compared to the giant ski nations. Weekend results of 7th and 12th are impressive enough without grand claims that he might have won if the race was held elsewhere!

It was a bit tongue in cheek really and agree with your analysis. Good for Flachau in terms of publicity for the area and home of the legendary Herminator who has a ski school there and big statue of him in the car park. Fingers crossed the big one at the end of the week looking forward to seeing this but will not be the same atmosphere without the crowds having experiened this and the night slalom in Schladming a few years ago when Marcel Hirsher won it was incredible.

Just following up on why he wasn't quarantining when required, if the hotel were letting him eat in the dining room with other guests, despite knowing that he was meant to be quarantining (could they not have known?) it would seem they are equally culpable. Your info is excellent SwingBeep - do you know when the Brit in question actually arrived in resort?

It is the responsibility of the individual concerned to go quarantine and stay there until the 10 days is up, this is clearly stated in English on the Federal Office of Public Health website https://www.bag.admin.ch/bag/en/home/krankheiten/ausbrueche-epidemien-pandemien/aktuelle-ausbrueche-epidemien/novel-cov/empfehlungen-fuer-reisende/quarantaene-einreisende.html I don't see how the hotel could be culpable, hotel staff have no legal authority to ensure that a person remains in quarantine. The enforcement of quarantine is the responsibility of the cantonal authorities.

The date that he arrived in the resort isn't really important, if he arrived in Switzerland after 14 December then he should have automatically gone into quarantine. If he arrived before that date and came into contact with an infected person he would also have been required to go into quarantine.

Thanks very much for the compliment. I wouldn't go as far as saying my information is excellent, it mainly comes from the Swiss press and is by no means as clear or as comprehensive as I would like, but it is perhaps a bit more accurate than what appears in the British press. The story in the Sun about the trainee ski instructors in Jochberg holding wild parties turned out to be a compete fabrication.

It was announced today that 90 members of the Swiss army who were helping to setup the race courses at Wengen have had to go into quarantine, the time they have to spend in quarantine might not count as part of their military service so they probably won't be best pleased.

Media attention has now moved to St Moritz, where there has been an outbreak of the 'South African' variant B.1.351 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-moritz/swiss-ski-resort-st-moritz-quarantines-hotels-shuts-schools-to-contain-covid-variant-idUSKBN29N0DB

"the time they have to spend in quarantine might not count as part of their military service" :-)

Came across this today. Interesting to see the latest test results from Wengen - 1.5% positive rate in testing since 05 Jan, 28 cases in total, none in last 5 days. Not quite the formidable outbreak the media was shouting about (on 10-11 Jan?)

[Caveat] I don't know if this covers every test in Wengen.

Certainly looks like good news for resort staying open? Lost track of all the details and don't have time to check religiously but (quick Google to usually more reliable sources), Reuters say "60 infections" on 12 Jan, this one on Monday, 90 (https://www.srf.ch/news/schweiz/ausbrueche-von-mutierten-viren-corona-mutationen-das-sind-die-hotspots-der-schweiz ). So guessing this is the 60 maybe found by mid Jan plus the more recent 28 in your stats giving 88 total, rounded to 90? Anyway appears to show after Xmas/NY spike new infections dropping?