Tenerife hotel with 1,000 guests locked down after Italian tests positive for coronavirus
Around 1,000 holidaymakers in a Tenerife hotel have been told to remain in their rooms after an Italian tourist there tested positive for coronavirus.
Officials confirmed the H10 Costa Adeje Palace hotel as the site of the latest case of the Covid-19 virus – the third to affect Spain so far.
Police were said to be surrounding the hotel to make sure nobody enters or leaves.
A regional health authority spokeswoman said: "The hotel guests are not in quarantine. Health vigilance procedures are in place. The measures will be subject to modification during the day as health experts decide on the best course of action."
The spokeswoman said one of the modifications could be a "formal ban on people entering and leaving the hotel".
The Italian tourist, whose age has not been disclosed, comes from the Lombardy region of Italy, in which several people have died from the virus.
He had reportedly been staying at the hotel with his wife, and went to a local health centre on Monday afternoon after having felt unwell for several days. He has been quarantined at Nuestra Señora de Candelaria University Hospital in Tenerife's capital, Santa Cruz.
Canary Islands president Angel Victor Torres said on Monday night: "This afternoon, the coronavirus protocol has been activated for an Italian tourist in the south of Tenerife.
"The result from the first test carried out in the Canaries is positive. Tomorrow, new tests will take place in Madrid. The patient has been quarantined."
A spokesman for the regional health authority added: "The protocol states that a second test must take place at the National Microbiology Centre at the Carlos III Health Institute in Madrid.
The case comes after a German holidaymaker was quarantined in hospital on the Canary Island of La Gomera following a positive test.
He has now been allowed home, as has a 46-year-old British expat in Majorca who was taken to hospital after picking up the virus at the Alps ski resort visited by coronavirus super-spreader Steve Walsh.
The expat's wife and daughters, aged seven and 10, and an eight-year-old boy who had close contact with the family, were also tested for the virus. All tests on them came back negative.
