Four-star Spanish hotel placed on lockdown after Italian guest tests positive for coronavirus
A four-star hotel in the Spanish island of Tenerife has been placed on lockdown after an Italian doctor who had been vacationing there tested positive for coronavirus, according to new reports.
The doctor, who had been staying with his wife in the H10 Costa Adeje Palace hotel on the largest of Spain’s Canary Islands, tested positive Monday and has been placed in isolation at the University Hospital Nuestra Señora de Candelaria, the BBC reported.
The vacationer, from Italy’s Lombardy region — where authorities are currently battling an outbreak — will undergo a second test to confirm the COVID-19 infection, according to the report.
Since then, health authorities ordered that the around 1,000 guests at the hotel be monitored for infection, police sources told El Pais newspaper.
Spanish health authorities could not immediately confirm the lockdown, but said they would test tourists and staff for coronavirus after an Italian guest was confirmed to have the bug.
A receptionist at the Barcelona-based company managing the hotel said the establishment would not comment.
One guest posted the note placed under hotel patrons’ doors to Facebook.
“We regret to inform you that for health reasons, the hotel has been closed down,” the note said. “Until the sanitary authorities warn, you must remain in your rooms.”
Guest John Turton told the BBC he saw the note, but then spotted people walking outside and heading to breakfast.
“The hotel has been cordoned off but we’re trying to make the best of what’s going on,” he told the network. “We haven’t been given any more information other than the note, but we’re going to just wait, try and enjoy the holiday and see what happens.”
Christopher Betts, who is also staying at the hotel, told Reuters that all guests were asked to remain in their rooms, though they are permitted to have breakfast in the hotel restaurant.
“We can see from the window there are security officers outside the hotel and about 50 hotel employees,” Betts said. “We have received no information whatsoever.”
Betts has not yet been tested for the virus, he said.
Italy is battling the largest coronavirus outbreak outside Asia with 231 people infected, seven of whom have died.
The country has effectively sealed off a dozen northern towns in the Lombardy and Veneto regions, two hotspots of the outbreak. Around 50,000 people are prohibited from leaving the towns for the next two weeks without permission.
Mainland China, where the virus originated, still accounts for the vast majority of infections — more than 77,000 — and 2,663 deaths. Most of the cases have been reported in the city of Wuhan, the outbreak’s epicenter.
With Post wires