A suspected coronavirus superspreader has been arrested after allegedly infecting 22 people with the disease – including three toddlers.
The man, 40, continued to work out at the gym and travel to work despite having a cough and a temperature of more than 40 degrees, according to reports.
He is said to have wandered around his place of work in Majorca telling colleagues he was going to infect them.
Fourteen relatives, including three one-year-olds, five workers and three fellow gym goers all tested positive for Covid-19, the BBC reports.
Spanish police said the man had been showing symptoms for several days, but he refused to go home from work in Manacor.
(Image: Getty Images/iStockphoto)
The unnamed man continued going to the gym and to work while waiting for the results from his PCR test on evening.
His colleagues told him to go home, but he refused, police said. He would then pull down his mask, cough and say: “I’m going to infect you all with coronavirus.”
When his test came back positive, colleagues were “alarmed”, according to police, who have been investigating the allegations since late January.
None of the people became seriously ill, police said.
There have been 3.47m coronavirus cases in Spain since the start of the pandemic and around 77,000 deaths.
Infections have been declining since a February high that saw as many as 107,000 infections reported in a single day.
Curfew measures are currently in place and the country follows similar laws to the UK’s rule of six with a ban on household mixing.
