Brits finally home after quarantine in Tenerife hotel

A GROUP of Scots who were quarantined at a hotel in Tenerife after a guest there tested positive for coronavirus have flown back to the UK.

More than 100 people, including 14 Scots, were on board the Jet2 plane which flew to Manchester yesterday.

The group should have left Tenerife last Monday but their flight was disrupted by sandstorms.

They were taken to stay at the H10 Costa Adeje Palace, in Tenerife, last Monday night, ahead of taking a rescheduled flight.

However, their stay was further delayed when it emerged a visiting Italian doctor, who had stayed at the hotel, had tested positive for coronavirus. He is thought to have stayed at the hotel for six days.

Guests at the hotel, in the Southwest of the island, found a note slipped under their doors last Tuesday, saying they must stay in isolation until further notice, and would be regularly checked by doctors.

They were given a surgical mask each and a thermometer to check their temperature on a regular basis.

Two security perimeters were erected around the hotel, while a ‘field hospital’ treated those with symptoms.

However, the next day guests were allowed to walk around the hotel grounds as long as they wore their face masks.

Those willing to venture out were able to eat breakfast at a buffet and use the hotel’s sun-lounging areas, while a make shift distribution station was set up for bottled water.

As health staff arrived to carry out tests, a notice on the back gate of the building read: ‘Entrance forbidden to people not authorised.’

However, authorities in Spain later announced that the guests would be allowed to leave if they tested negative for the virus.

The Scots group included Stephen Diamond and his wife Lynn, from Provanmill in Glasgow. Mr Diamond, who has type 2 diabetes, said arrangements had been made to ensure everyone got the medication they needed.

While in quarantine, Mr Diamond told BBC Scotland that the holidaymakers were being ‘treated fine,’ but were keen to find out when they would be going home.

After landing in Manchester the Scots travellers boarded a bus which brought them back to Glasgow.

They were also handed letters informing them of the next steps they were to take after getting home.

It advised them to contact their local health protection team ‘immediately’ and explain that they are a British who stayed at the H10 Costa Adeje Palace Hotel, Tenerife, and that they had been advised to ‘self-isolate for 14 days’.

It also told them to immediately telephone their GP or NHS24 if they become unwell and inform them ‘that you are being followed up as a contact of novel coronavirus (COVID19) and that you have returned from Tenerife’.

The letter also warned the passengers not to go to their local GP or any other health service unless told to by their local health protection team.

Yesterday, Jet2 said all the passengers had tested negative for the virus. A spokesman told the BBC: ‘We are pleased to confirm that Jet2holidays customers at the H10 Costa Adeje Palace will be flying back to the UK with us on a dedicated flight this afternoon, following their negative test results for Covid-19 and subject to them showing no symptoms on departure.

‘The UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) and Public Health England will be advising customers about the steps they need to follow once back in the UK.’

‘Entrance forbidden’ ‘Self-isolate for 14 days’