There are numerous indications that ski towns are incubators for covid-19. To compare outbreaks in different size regions I look at the number of cases per million people. By that metric the most intense outbreak in the US is around the ski areas of Aspen and Vail Colorado (as of March 21st 2020). That really surprised me when I first discovered it.
In Italy, the second most intense outbreak is in the tiny Aosta Valley in the Alps. This area borders France and Switzerland. As of March 20th, this area has 2445 cases per million people, which is just behind Lombardy with 2532 cases per million. The case load is rapidly growing.
At the other end of the Alps, the Austrian ski resort of Ischgl played a major role in transmitting covid-19 to Norway and Iceland. The Icelandic government warned of the danger from Ischgl on March 5th when a plane carrying 15 covid-19 cases arrived in Iceland. 14 of the 15 infected passengers had been to Ischgl. Despite the warnings from Iceland, the Austrian government kept the resort open for days in a bid to protect tourism profits. The Norwegians later found that 41% of their cases were in people who returned from Austria.
It seems that people traveling for ski vacations to the Alps and Colorado played a big role in spreading covid-19 around the world. Also, conditions in those ski towns appear to have been ideal for the transmission of covid-19, so they provide an example of the kinds of places that are most hazardous.
The Austrian ski town that spread coronavirus
How an Austrian ski paradise became a COVID-19 hotspot
Aspen to Australia
Vail to Mexico
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