Covid: Majorca hotel quarantine ends for 170 Spanish students

Most of the Spanish students have now left quarantine in Majorca

More than 170 Spanish teenagers have left Covid quarantine in a Majorca hotel and are heading back to mainland Spain, but 77 who tested positive remain under police guard at the hotel.

All but a few of those who tested negative are to board a ferry bound for Valencia. They had protested from their balconies over their forced isolation.

A judge ruled on Wednesday that the Covid-negative teenagers could go home.

A Covid outbreak was linked to partying school students in Palma de Mallorca.

The quarantine at the four-star Palma Bellver hotel came just days before an expected influx of British tourists, after the UK added the Balearic Islands to its limited green list of low-risk destinations.

Majorca police confined the students to the hotel after the authorities identified a reggaeton concert in Palma on 15 June as a super-spreader event.

Teenagers from the mainland - most from the southern Andalucía region - were in Majorca to celebrate the end of their school year.

Marina - relieved to be flying home from Majorca

"I'm so happy to be free," a student called Marina told the BBC, among a few who were heading home by plane on Thursday.

She said she was "very excited" about seeing her family again and "grateful to all the people who supported us". She said she had chosen a flight so that she could get home sooner.

The Covid flare-up linked to student trips to Majorca has put nearly 6,000 people into quarantine across Spain, nearly 2,000 of whom have tested positive, Spain's Health Minister Carolina Darias said.

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Officials are trying to find out whether party venues in Majorca, where students celebrated, violated Covid hygiene rules.

British tourists with a negative test result now do not have to quarantine on arrival in the Balearic Islands, nor when they return to the UK.

On Wednesday, Ms Darias said the Covid infection rate in Spain, measured over a 14-day period, had risen from 92 cases per 100,000 people a week ago to 117.