Brits evacuated from the cruise ship hit by a hantavirus outbreak have arrived in the UK after being repatriated from Tenerife. A chartered Titan Airways flight transported the passengers from the Canary Islands, landing at Manchester Airport on Sunday evening.
The 20 British passengers, who were tested for hantavirus before getting on the flight, will be taken to isolate at the UK’s initial Covid quarantine site at Arrowe Park Hospital in the Wirral. The MV Hondius arrived in Tenerife on Sunday morning, with Spanish authorities beginning evacuations of the cruise ship by nationality and ferrying passengers to a port by small boat.
While they were being taken from the port at Granadilla de Abona to Tenerife South Airport, some British passengers waved and gave thumbs up as they passed the watching media.
Passengers were told to leave their luggage on the ship and were only allowed to take a small bag with essential items such as their phone and passport.
Spanish authorities said on Sunday that no passengers on the ship were showing symptoms of the virus, with 14 Spanish nationals who formed the first group to be taken off the vessel being flown to a hospital in Madrid.
After returning to the UK, passengers will be housed and provided with clothes at an accommodation block on the Arrowe Park site away from the hospital’s public areas to receive clinical assessment and testing as a precautionary measure.
The hospital, used as the UK’s initial Covid quarantine site, had blue-covered fences erected around accommodation blocks on Sunday morning.
They added that the NHS trust and hospital are “operating as normal” with no risk to patients, visitors, or staff and “people should continue to come forward for care as usual”.
After their isolation, public health specialists will assess whether passengers can isolate at home or at another suitable location based on their living arrangements.
Britons returning to the UK will stay in self-isolation for 45 days and will not be allowed to take public transport to their homes.