Help us, please beg Britons in lockdown at hotel from hell
SOME guests chose to stay in their rooms. Others put on their face masks and decided to relax by the hotel’s swimming pool.
The two approaches were just one sign of the confusion and frustration facing a group of British holidaymakers being contained in a Tenerife hotel for two weeks.
Frustrated guests pleaded with Boris Johnson to intervene yesterday and said they were desperate to return home amid a chaotic attempt to control corona virus from spreading within the Costa Adeje Palace Hotel.
At least 160 Britons have been holed up in the four- star resort after the Spanish authorities padlocked its doors when four guests from Italy tested positive.
Yesterday they told of the ‘absolutely awful’ situation and said they had been given conflicting information about how long the enforced stay would last.
And, as the Foreign Office began contacting them last night telling them they must remain at the hotel until March 10, some complained that staying put placed them at increased risk.
Mandy Davis, who is on holiday with her husband Roger, said: ‘Nobody knows what the right thing to do is, because nobody’s had this virus before.
‘So please, let’s sort something out, come and rescue us please, Boris. And let’s just get the hell out of here.’
Rosie Mitford, who is on holiday with her father and brother, only arrived at the hotel on Monday when the four Italians who tested positive had already left.
The 18-year-old nursing student said: ‘We want to come home now. We don’t see the point of staying here for two weeks when none of us have symptoms and then isolating when we get back.’
The family group were preparing for a reprieve last night when authorities on the Canary Islands said that a group of more than 100 recent arrivals could go home. Spanish officials have begun tracking down guests who may have come into contact with the infected quartet before returning to their homes across Europe.
Guests holed up at the 500room property told of the shambolic arrangements inside as they faced two-weeks of quarantine.
Holidaymakers with babies described how they had unsuccessfully pleaded with the hotel for suitable food, while being left without essential products such as nappies.
Guests were initially told to ‘stay calm’ and stay in their rooms yesterday morning as medical teams in protective suits handed out face masks and thermometers, then carried out medical checks. Guests have been told to
‘Spreading infection’
take their temperature twice a day. The curfew was dropped shortly afterwards and more than 260 guests were seen sun-lounging outside, some in face masks, while others took to the swimming pools.
But others remained in their rooms and had breakfast brought to them.
Dr Bharat Pankhania, a senior clinical lecturer at the University of exeter Medical School, said the freedom given to hotel guests was ‘totally unacceptable’.
He likened the situation to the Diamond Princess cruise ship, which saw an explosion of cases to more than 700 after passengers were quarantined. ‘it is hard to believe having seen what we saw with the cruise that anyone would embark on this strategy,’ he told the Daily Telegraph. ‘Any new case would be at risk of spreading infection. every time there is a new case you set the 14-day clock back to the start again and again and again.’
it has been reported that between 600 and 800 guests from 25 countries are at the hotel in the south-west of the island. Because the containment measures affect guests’ liberty, a local judge will rule each day on whether to allow some to leave.
An Foreign Office spokesman said: ‘Our staff are in close contact with the hotel management and the Spanish authorities and have written to all British guests, and are in touch with anyone identified as vulnerable or in need.’