Disneyland Paris to host mass Covid vaccination site

Disneyland Paris, normally Europe’s biggest tourist attraction, will from Saturday host a mass Covid vaccination site at its convention centre as France seeks to speed up its innoculation drive, officials said Wednesday.

The amusement park east of the capital has been closed since October 30, when non-essential businesses were ordered to close amid a surge in infections, putting its 17,000 employees out of work.

It had originally planned to re-admit visitors on April 2, but worsening conditions forced it to postpone.

The vaccination site will be housed outside the amusement park proper at its Newport Bay Club, a convention centre near its hotel complex.

It will be run by local authorities and the regional ARS health service, and will be open weekends only, whereas other French vaccination sites often close on Sunday.

The goal is to give shots to at least 1,000 people a day, as France aims to get at least one jab to 20 million people by mid-May.

As of Tuesday, France had gotten at least one dose to nearly 12.8 million people, or 19 percent of its population, according to health ministry data.

“Disneyland Paris is proud to help support the authorities… to administer vaccines,” the park’s vice president of operations, Eric Marion, said in a statement.

The global Disney group has announced 32,000 job cuts at its theme park activities worldwide by the end of the first quarter, mostly in the United States, because of the impact of the coronavirus.

But the Disneyland Park in California is set to reopen on April 30 after more than a year of closure.