Today marks two years since the world’s eyes were on the H-10 Costa Adeje Palace hotel in the south of Tenerife after an Italian guest was the first person in Tenerife infected with Covid-19. It was just the second case in Spain after a German tourist tested positive in La Gomera three weeks earlier.
Immediately, the hotel went into lockdown with 900 guests and staff quarantined inside, the first time an entire hotel was isolated for health reasons, even before the World Health Organization declared the epidemic a pandemic.
Overnight the world's press planted themselves in front of the hotel, shielded by a police blockade, directing their cameras at the tents of the field hospital in front of reception and towards any balcony where there was movement.
During the two weeks that the hotel was in confinement, only seven people got infected with Covid (six Italians and one British), which highlighted the success of the strategy used by the 13 doctors, 42 nurses, and 10 logistics management technicians, in the isolation period to contain the spread of the virus.
Staff at the hotel talk about how they pulled together to get through the two weeks, trying to offer a service as complete as possible and continuing to feed almost 900 people between them, in an environment that they weren’t used to, and a time when how the virus spread was largely unknown.
The employees earned the sympathy of the customers with their professionalism. In addition to the encouragement that they transmitted through the corridors, dining rooms, gardens, and swimming pools, they also received thank you notes and even children's drawings that appeared hanging on the walls.
Nieves López, who was head waiter at the time, says he has an indelible memory of the last day. “At midnight, when the quarantine ended, many customers came to the bar, took off their masks, and threw them in the air all at once. Then they went outside applauding the health workers and the National Police who were standing guard. It was a beautiful image."
At this time, the H-10 Costa Adeje Palace hotel became a large national laboratory for the treatment of the first Covid-19 infections, and valuable information and data was gained on how the virus acted that was used around the world to help protect people.
Two years on and the hotel is back open as normal and has actually seen an increase in bookings due to that two-week period, which is amazing when you consider that at the time many thought it could destroy Tenerife as a tourist resort and the hotel in particular.
It was only when Covid started spreading across the world that the severity of the whole situation was realised, and who knew what was to come.
