Hong Kong Disneyland reopens to masked guests in scorching heat

[HONG KONG] Hong Kong Disneyland reopened on Thursday under health restrictions to check the spread of infections in a pandemic that's seeing a second wave of outbreaks, including a flare up this week in Beijing.

About 100 visitors were lined up on Thursday morning to enter the park, which had been closed since late January. The scene was more subdued than the mid-May restart of operations at Shanghai Disneyland, which drew long queues including fans dressed head-to-toe in Disney character costumes.

While the 32 degrees Celsius Hong Kong heat bore down on visitors under sunny skies and 80 per cent humidity, workers enforced mask-wearing rules. When a reporter adjusted his mask to get more air, an attendant quickly spotted the infraction and warned him to stay fully covered.

Walt Disney Co, which counted on theme parks for about 46 per cent of operating income in the year ended September, has said it will limit capacity at reopened parks to help keep visitors safe amid the pandemic. The entertainment giant did not say what the attendance limit would be for Hong Kong Disneyland, while the company had previously said it would initially sell tickets at less than one-third of full capacity at Shanghai Disneyland.

The reopening in Hong Kong also suggests that tough early measures to control the virus, coloured by the city's experience 17 years ago with the severe acute respiratory syndrome known as Sars, were effective. The city of 7.2 million people has reported only four coronavirus deaths, compared with 26 in Singapore, which has about six million people, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Worldwide, Covid-19 has killed more than 447,500 people.

BLOOMBERG