Coronavirus: Ski area in Bulgaria’s Bansko closed
By order of Bulgaria’s Prosecutor’s Office and by the decision of the crisis staff in the resort town, the ski area in Bansko has been closed with immediate effect, Bulgarian National Radio reported on March 16.
The report comes a few hours after Bulgaria’s national crisis staff against Covid-19 said that the latest confirmed case of coronavirus was a nine-year-old British child who had been on a skiing holiday in Bansko.
BNR said that the child had arrived in Bansko on Friday with his uncle and other relatives. They were placed in quarantine after Bulgaria’s Interior Ministry learnt that the child’s uncle had been in contact with his sister in the UK, who had tested positive for Covid-19.
Bansko mayor Ivan Kadev said that foreign nationals in the resort would be visited and would be required to fill out declarations that they are aware of the State of Emergency in Bulgaria.
On March 13, Bulgaria’s National Assembly approved, with the support of all political parties, a request by the Cabinet to declare a month-long State of Emergency to contain the spread of Covid-19.
Bansko’s municipal administration was meeting in emergency session on Monday, BNR said.
On Sunday, mayor Kadev issued a public appeal to hotels and other places of accommodation in Bansko not to admit new guests and to ask their guests to leave early.
On Monday morning, before the announcement of the closure, the slopes of Bansko were practically empty, as shown in these photographs taken by Lance Nelson of banskoblog.com.
