Guests stuck at Spanish hotel as Europe remains on alert

Bloomberg

Around 700 guests remained confined to their Canary Islands hotel on Wednesday as Spain stepped up efforts to contain the spread of the coronavirus and Italy and other European nations were on high alert.
The number of infections in Tenerife has risen to four after two more Italians at the hotel, the H10 Costa Adeje Palace, were found to have the virus, the Canary Islands government said. They were accompanying an Italian man and his wife who tested positive.
The total number of live cases in Spain has climbed to seven, with three identified in Madrid, Barcelona and the Valencia region. The Barcelona case is an Italian woman resident there, while the Madrid patient had traveled in northern Italy, El Mundo newspaper reported.
The Tenerife hotel was sealed off after the first cases were identified. As many as 100 of the more than 700 guests will be allowed to leave in coming hours as they arrived and had no contact with the infected Italians, the local government said.
A team of 10 medical staff is in the hotel taking medical samples and 90% of the guests were clear of symptoms.
Elsewhere in Europe, efforts continued to prevent the spread of the virus and limit its impact. Infections worldwide have jumped to almost 81,000, with more than 2,700 deaths, mainly in China.
Italy, the European nation worst affected, is working on a package of measures to help sustain the economy after the number of cases rose above 300, with 11 fatalities. The latest is a 75-year-old woman who died at a Treviso hospital, the local major said.

Two hotels on the Liguria coast were sealed off after one tourist tested positive.
Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said the government will try to help businesses harmed by the virus outbreak in sectors from manufacturing to tourism, according to an interview with Corriere della Sera newspaper.
As the fallout spread, Milan postponed its design week — one of its busiest events with hundreds of thousands of visitors from around the world — from April to June.
Health ministers from Italy and neighboring countries meeting in Rome on Tuesday agreed that border closures aren’t currently an appropriate measure to stem the spread of the virus, Austrian Health Minister Rudolf Anschober said in a TV interview.
Health experts who briefed the ministers “said that this doesn’t make sense, it doesn’t help,” Anschober said. Sharing information and preventive measures are more important, he added.
The 108-room Grand Hotel Europa in Innsbruck, Austria, returned to normal operations on Wednesday after a brief lockdown Tuesday, a hotel receptionist said by telephone. The measure was imposed because an Italian Innsbruck resident who tested positive for the virus had worked in the hotel.
Masked Police
Spanish state broadcaster TVE showed images of notes that had been passed under the doors to hotel guests in Tenerife, asking them to stay in their rooms. Elaine Whitewick from Keswick in north-western England posted videos on Facebook showing images of masked Spanish police in the hotel car park.
In Barcelona, authorities are awaiting the results of a second test to confirm the case, according to the region’s health department. The person is a 36-year-old woman who visited northern Italy from Feb. 12 to 22, Catalonia’s health department said in a statement Tuesday.
The woman, who has mild symptoms and no history of serious illness, was admitted to a hospital in Barcelona with flu-like symptoms. In total, 25 people who came in close contact with her after her trip to Milan have been asked to stay at home for the next 14 days and are under observation.
A man in Castellon in the Valencia region has also been found to have the virus in an initial test, the government said in a statement late Tuesday.