Hotel Grand Chancellor guests evacuated before midnight

“I’m sure people were thinking: ‘Why did it take from when we made the decision first thing in the morning until nearly midnight?’.

“It’s because we couldn’t let those people mix within the hotel when we were moving them out and we couldn’t let them mix when they went to the new hotel.

“All of those things were taken into consideration to make sure that the 129 people were kept safe and that anyone around them as this occurred were also kept safe.”

The decision was made to evacuate the Hotel Grand Chancellor, which has operated as a quarantine facility since September, after a casual cleaner tested positive for the highly infectious UK strain.

There are now six cases in the cluster traced to the hotel, which has sparked a national health…