'I'm suing the ski resort where I contracted Covid'
The outbreak was just beginning in Europe when I flew to Austria on 10 March. A friend had invited me to join an all-blokes skiing holiday in Ischgl in the Alps. At the time, there were no Foreign Office warnings about travelling to Austria and nothing in the news, either. I thought, why not?
When I arrived it was business as usual. I went straight to a bar – the Jägermeister was flowing and the place was heaving. Twenty-four hours later, we had dinner in a packed Italian restaurant. I’d spotted something vague on the resort website saying that there was coronavirus in town and that there’d be no après-ski that evening. But all the hotel bars, restaurants and boutiques were open.
On Friday everything chan-ged. At 2.15pm I got a call from my hotel: ‘Mr Mallender, you need to get back here immediately. The entire Paznaun valley is going to be quarantined.’ I rushed down the mountain, threw my stuff in a bag, and got on a ski bus with around a dozen other tourists. It was standing room only, and the bus was moving at walking pace through nose-to-tail traffic. The town looked like a scene from a disaster movie. Roads were blocked, police cars were flashing, and tourists were running everywhere.
Eight and a half hours later, the bus pulled up in a larger town. Normally it’d be a 40-minute journey. I felt under the weather but thought it was down to a hangover and stress. But that night, staying at a new hotel, I woke up sweating; I realised I’d been infected with Covid-19.
When I arrived at Gatwick on Sunday no one checked me, but when I got home I went straight into self-isolation. I developed a fever, a cough, and an odd metallic taste in my mouth. By 27 March, I hadn’t slept for four days and was struggling to breathe. My wife called an ambulance.
The paramedics gave me oxygen, and by the time a doctor saw me I was already feeling a lot better. I took it easy for the next fortnight, and three weeks later I had recovered. But I was angry about what happened in Ischgl, which turned out to be the epicentre of the European outbreak.
I now know the Tyrolean authorities should have acted earlier. On 4 March, a hotel in Ischgl had received an email from an Icelander saying she’d contracted Covid-19 the week before. By the following Monday, the day before we arrived, it was confirmed that 15 more people had tested positive.Why did the authorities wait until Friday the 13th to act?
If people put making money before safety, we need to know. That’s why I’ve joined a class action against the Tyrol region. The Austrian lawyer compiling it has signatures from more than 6,000 tourists from 47 countries who believe they caught the virus in Ischgl. According to reports, at least 28 people died. I was one of the lucky ones.
As told to Karen Glaser
