Hundreds of British tourists have reportedly fled a luxury ski resort in Switzerland after being forced to quarantine due to fears about a new, more contagious strain of Covid-19.
Following the discovery of the coronavirus variant in England, Swiss authorities announced that all the people who arrived from the UK since December 14 would have to self-isolate for 10 days from their date of arrival.
They also banned new arrivals from the UK from December 20 onwards.
On December 23, Swiss authorities brought in an exemption allowing flights to and from the UK from Christmas Eve to enable residents to return to their homes for the festive period.
In the alpine village of Verbier, officials managed to track down 420 visitors from the UK, who were told go into quarantine.
But according to a report in the SonntagsZeitung, 200 people fled during the night rather than remain indoors as they were told to do.
Jean-Marc Sandoz, communications officer for the Bagnes municipality, said: "Many of them stayed in quarantine for a day before setting off under the cover of darkness."
The Sonntags Zeitung reported that there were "xenophobic resentments" against British tourists in the upmarket resort after the discovery of the new variant.
Mr Sandoz added: "Many people are unfairly denounced and accused of breaking the quarantine instructions – only because of their language."
He added some British tourists had left feeling "a little angry with Switzerland" and with the sense of having been "trapped".
He also said that according to a Saturday survey of the ski resort's hotels, fewer than 10 people would still be in quarantine.
The remaining people would either have left the area or their quarantine time would have expired.
Mr Sandoz added: "We can't blame them. In most cases, quarantine was untenable. Imagine four people staying in a hotel room of 20 square metres."
He called the whole situation "the worst week our community has ever experienced".
Many hoteliers only noticed their British guests had left during the night after they did not answer calls to their rooms or left meals deposited outside their rooms untouched.
British tourists represent about 21 per cent of the guests of the resort in the Valais Canton, which has been voted the best ski resort in Switzerland for the past two years.
On Sunday, the Swiss health ministry announced two cases of the new coronavirus strain have been detected in the country.
One case was also found in neighbouring Liechtenstein, officials said.
According to the latest data, Switzerland has recorded 428,197 cases of Covid-19 and 7,210 coronavirus-related deaths.
