ARCHIVED - Covid outbreak: students confined in Mallorca allowed to leave quarantine hotel

Positive cases have now been reported in 11 Spanish regions among students who had been on end-of-year trips to the Balearics

The massive Covid outbreak that began in Mallorca continues to spread, with 1,700 citizens across Spain now affected, the health authorities have reported.

As of Tuesday evening (29 June), Madrid was the worst affected region, as 593 students who had been to Mallorca and 63 of their friends or relatives had tested positive for coronavirus.

In Catalonia, 166 students who travelled to Mallorca, 153 who travelled to Menorca and 34 who travelled to Tenerife on end-of-year trips earlier this month have caught the virus.

Further cases linked to student trips to Mallorca have been detected in Murcia (58), the Basque Country (189), Andalusia (122), Galicia (102), Valencia (104), Castilla-La Mancha (19) and Aragón (10).

One 18-year-old is receiving treatment in intensive care at a hospital in Elche (Alicante) after catching Covid on one of these trips, and experts have pointed out that although youngsters are less likely to suffer complications, it is still a possibility, and that statistically one in 1,000 young Covid patients will end up in an ICU.

Meanwhile, students put into quarantine in Mallorca and their families have been fighting for their release, claiming they were illegally detained. Parents of a group from Madrid requested a writ of habeas corpus, which the courts rejected, and were considering taking the matter further until a Palma judge determined on Wednesday afternoon (30 June) that students with negative test results will be allowed to leave the hotel and only those who tested positive will be required to remain in isolation.

269 students from mainland Spain had been moved to the Palma Bellver hotel, where they were expected to spend 10 days in quarantine. However, many of the students and their parents pointed out that they had arrived on the island after the parties where the outbreak is believed to have started. Even so, 68 of them tested positive for Covid-19 when they arrived at the hotel.  

While their parents complained from afar that their offspring were being mistreated and held against their will, local residents reported that although there were police officers outside, the hotel itself was in chaos with loud music blaring out at all hours of the day and night and nearby bar owners sending booze up to the balconies via rope and pulley systems. Moreover, there were reports from inside the building that students who had tested positive were wandering around the corridors and going from room to room instead of remaining in isolation. 

Some even went as far as to run away. Spanish TV station Antena 3 released images of two young men leaving the hotel with suitcases on Tuesday evening. One is reported to have returned later on, claiming he felt ill, while the whereabouts of the other remained unknown.

Meanwhile, the regional authorities in the Balearics intend to hand the organisers of a music festival at Palma bullring, considered to be one of the focal points of the outbreak, a 200,000 euro fine and have asked for collaboration from the Guardia Civil and National Police to investigate party boats, a hotel disco and an aquapark where affected students have reported that health and safety measures were ignored.