Around 200 out of 420 British tourists have broken quarantine rules after fleeing a ski resort in Switzerland.

Visitors who arrived from UK had to be quarantined

On Dec. 21, Swiss authorities announced that those who had arrived from the UK since Dec. 14 must be quarantined for 10 days.

This announcement came after the discovery of a new Covid-19 variant in the UK which is believed to be more infectious.

Verbier, an alpine village located in the Swiss municipality of Bagnes, is popular among British tourists.

420 visitors from the UK were located in a ski resort at Verbier and they had all been instructed to quarantine themselves, according to The Guardian.

Escaped quarantine

Some of them, however, left immediately. Others quarantined for a while before deciding to escape, according to France24 citing AFP.

Jean-Marc Sandoz, spokesman for the wider Bagnes municipality, told Swiss newspaper SonntagsZeitung, as reported by France24:

"Many of them stayed in quarantine for a day before they set off unnoticed under the cover of darkness."

South China Morning Post reported that some of the tourists re-emerged in France.

The British visitors' departure was only discovered after they failed to answer calls to their rooms or left the meals outside their rooms untouched.

Fewer than 10 people are still in quarantine at the resort, said Sandoz. The rest have either left or their quarantine time would have expired.

"We can't blame them"

Sandoz explained that the British tourists had felt "trapped" whilst in quarantine.

"We can't blame them. In most cases, quarantine was untenable. Imagine four people staying in a hotel room of 20 square metres," he said.

In addition, there were xenophobic resentments against British tourists in the resort.

SonntagsZeitung wrote in its article, as reported by The Guardian, that anyone who speaks English is deemed "suspicious".

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Top photo via Getty Images.