World’s best lockdown as Disneyland guests are closed at the park to prevent the spread of Covid – but the rides remain OPEN

THOUSANDS of Shanghai Disneyland guests have been locked down at the resort following a Covid outbreak – but visitors can still enjoy the rides.

Footage showed panicked guests rushing to the park’s gates to escape after Monday’s shutdown – only to find them locked.

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All visitors have now been ordered to remain there until they can present a negative Covid test as China continues to impose sweeping draconian restrictions on the population.

Just after 11:30 a.m. local time, the resort announced it would immediately close the main theme park and nearby areas — including the shopping street — until further notice.

“We will notify guests once we have a confirmed date for operations to resume,” the park said in a statement.

In a silver lining to sated guests, Disneyland said it will keep the outdoor attractions and two hotels open — meaning visitors can freely rule the park with short lines.

The resort has reportedly kept the rides open for those stuck inside while thousands wait in a long line to be brushed off.

Some social media users said they dreamed of being locked away at Disneyland – but others slammed the disruption to their trip.

Security forces and medical personnel in full-body PPE suits rushed into the cordoned-off compound to maintain order and set up mass testing sites.

Eerie images showed thousands of visitors lining up for Covid tests as the daily Disneyworld fireworks display filled the skies over the resort on Monday night.

A video posted to Twitter, like Weibo, showed long lines of visitors — including a child in a stroller waiting to be tested.

“There are about 20,000 tourists in the park and the line is still quite long,” the person said.

A spokesman for Shanghai Disney Resort confirmed it was running “limited offers” – and said they were following guidelines from Chinese health authorities.

The Shanghai government said the park would prohibit people from entering or exiting – and all visitors inside would have to wait for the results of their tests before they could leave.

Anyone who has visited the park since October 27 has also been told to test for Covid daily for three days – suggesting someone who was at the park that day may have tested positive.

Shanghai Disneyland already requires visitors to test negative for Covid before visiting and wear face masks inside.

The closure marks the latest disruption for the park, which was closed for over three months during Shanghai’s lockdown earlier this year.

The resort was also closed for two days in November last year and more than 30,000 visitors were stuck inside after authorities ordered everyone to be tested.

China continues to pursue zero tolerance for the virus nearly three years after the first infection was reported in the communist nation.

The sudden closure comes two days after mass testing for Covid was ordered across the city and 1.3 million residents locked down under China’s draconian zero-Covid policy.

The city of 25million has recorded just 97 cases of Covid over the past 28 days – but tens of millions of residents are being ordered to undergo tests every day and whole neighborhoods have been locked down.

Local authorities across China continue to impose extreme measures to prevent any possibility of virus transmission, in line with the country’s ultra-strict zero-tolerance approach to Covid.

The Universal Resort in the capital Beijing just reopened on Monday after five days of closure triggered by virus measures.

It comes after China put 800,000 people back into lockdown in Wuhan last week as the nation continues its brutal “Covid Zero” policies.

The city was the scene of the world’s first Covid outbreak – which raised alarms at the World Health Organization on December 31, 2019.

Wuhan joined 27 other cities with different lockdown rules – nearly 210 million people were affected by the restrictions.

Wuhan has registered 240 cases in the past two weeks – but that was enough to tip the scales.