Austria has quarantined 12 people who were in close contact with a couple who were the country’s first coronavirus cases, one of whom works as a hotel receptionist, the local government in the province of Tyrol said on Wednesday.
Shortly after the Italian couple tested positive for the virus on Tuesday the authorities sealed off the hotel where the woman worked in Innsbruck, the regional capital, locking in guests and staff while they tested 62 of them for the virus.
On Sunday night Austria shut down rail travel between Germany and Italy by denying entry to a train from Venice because of two suspected coronavirus cases among the passengers. The train was only let through when those two passengers’ tests came back negative.
Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said the procedure would be repeated if others suspected of carrying the virus arrived at Austria’s borders.
Madrid’s regional health authorities confirmed on Tuesday the first coronavirus case in the capital, at the end of a day when other Covid-19 infections were detected in Catalonia, the Valencia region and the Canary Island of Tenerife. On Wednesday morning a second case was confirmed in Madrid. In total, 10 cases have been registered in Spain, although two of those patients have already been released from hospital. There have been eight confirmed cases in just 36 hours.
Both cases detected in Madrid are young men who had recently traveled to the north of Italy. They both are presenting mild symptoms of the illness.
A hotel in Tenerife in Spain’s Canary Islands has been locked down after a visiting Italian doctor tested positive for coronavirus.
Hundreds of guests at the H10 Costa Adeje Palace Hotel were told to stay in their rooms as medical tests were carried out.
The doctor is reportedly from the virus-hit Lombardy region. His wife has also now tested positive, sources say.
Global cases of the virus have passed 80,000, the vast majority in China.
Iran, one of the worst-affected nations outside China, on Tuesday said its deputy health minister, Iraj Harirchi, had tested positive for the virus.
