Spain: Man arrested for infecting 22 with COVID after going to work, gym with high fever

A 40-year-old man has been arrested in Spain on suspicion of assault after allegedly infecting 22 people with coronavirus. The man who has not been named by the police as yet has been reported to have gone to his office and gym despite having a temperature of over 40C or 104F. According to a BBC report, the man had been exhibiting COVID-19 symptoms for a number of days and had even taken a PCR test, however, he had still refused to abandon going out.

In a statement released Saturday, Spanish law enforcers emphasized that the man was a regular at work and gym while awaiting the results of the COVID-19 test. Additionally, he is said to have walked around his place of work in Majorca, pulling his mask down, coughing and telling colleagues he was going to infect them. It was when his test came positive, that his colleagues raised an alarm and approached police, which has already been probing into the allegations since January.

22 test positive

In the aftermath, five of his colleagues and three of his gym mates have tested positive for coronavirus. Another 14 members of the man’s family, which also includes three one-year-olds, have contracted the deadly infection. However, the police said none of the infected people have shown serious distress and all were being treated effectively.

The COVID-19 pandemic which emerged in the Chinese city of Wuhan late December in 2019 has now spiralled to kill over 3.1 million people across the globe. A total of 147,194,897 have been infected with the US and India bearing the maximum brunt of the accidentally created disease. As per Johns Hopkins University, a total of 17,313,163 people have contracted the infection while 195,123 people have succumbed to the virus.

Spain's government is optimistically sticking to its pledge to vaccinate 70% of its adult population by the end of the summer despite the latest setback to Europe's vaccinations effort. According to Associated Press, the country was expecting to receive 300,000 doses of Janssen last week but Johnson & Johnson has delayed delivery of its vaccine to European countries following the decision by the US Food and Drug Administration to pause the shots for possible links to very rare blood clots.

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