A Soton grad is being quarantined in Tenerife over coronavirus fears

‘No one knows how long we’ll be stuck here’


A University of Southampton graduate is being quarantined in Tenerife amid coronavirus fears, The Soton Tab can reveal. 

Harley Mitford, who studied Music at Southampton and graduated in 2019, told The Soton Tab: “Reports say that we’ll be stuck here for the customary two week period. Beyond that, no one yet knows.”

700 guests at Costa Adeje Palace in Tenerife have been placed on lockdown, after an Italian doctor, who had stayed at the hotel, tested positive for coronavirus on Monday. The man is being treated in hospital, along with three other people who have also been confirmed to have the disease. 

Guests at the hotel buffet, with facemasks

Harley, his sister and step dad had been on a family holiday, and were due to leave on Sunday but couldn’t due to cancelled flights. Their flight was rescheduled to Tuesday, but Harley says that morning they woke up to a letter saying the hotel was in medical lockdown, and they needed to stay in their rooms until further notice.

Harley told The Soton Tab: “Coming downstairs to enquire, we discovered all the staff wearing protective masks and gloves, and security guards blocking the front exit. The back, poolside exit was padlocked.”

Tents have been set up outside the hotel lobby

The guests haven’t had any “official announcement from the hotel” as to how long their quarantine will be. Yesterday they received a letter from the British Consulate Tenerife, which says: “We are aware of your situation at the hotel and would like to reassure you that we are in direct contact with the local authorities and hotel management daily.”

Harley told The Soton Tab: “The atmosphere is very mixed, with some self-isolating in their rooms, to people swimming, walking around without their hotel-provided facemasks on and eating at the buffet as though nothing had happened.

“Morale is generally high though, with everyone determined to stay calm and not to lose their heads, facing each day as it comes.”

In quarantine yesterday and on Tuesday, Harley and his family have been alternately kept in their rooms, with “cold picnic-y meals delivered in paper bags”, as well as having times where they are “allowed to roam freely within the hotel premises”.

The food delivered to the guests’ rooms

Harley told The Soton Tab: “We’re all pretty well resigned to having to spend two weeks in lockdown.

“To pass the time we’re just playing cards, watching telly, reading books.”

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