Virus patients in Spain get five-star hotel quarantine

An ambulance driver wearing a white protective gown enters a Barcelona hotel and announces the arrival of three new "customers" -- a trio of coronavirus patients discharged from hospital into luxury quarantine.

"Good morning! How are you? My name is Enrique Aranda and I am probably the first non health care worker you see in several days," says the director of the five-star Melia Sarria hotel, peering into the ambulance.

It took just three days to convert the hotel, which features contemporary decor and bathrooms with marble finishing, into a clinic.

"Some patients arrive thinking that they were taken out of hospital to be left to die, many people are frightened. I try to make them forget all that," said Aranda, wearing mask and gloves.

"I don't let them out of the ambulance until I get a smile out of them. I want them to enter in another way, that they see that they aren't in a hospital anymore, it is a hotel."
"Healthcare professionals are working longer hours, and are even working from home, to ensure no one is left untreated. We are working at full stretch," said