"Despite having symptoms and having done a PCR test, he continued his normal life without waiting for the result or quarantining," police said of the suspect in a tweet on Saturday.

Authorities added that the 40-year-old man "came to work with a 40°C fever [104°F] according to his colleagues. He was coughing loudly all over the place, lowering his facemask, while saying: 'I'm going to give you all the coronavirus.'"

The man infected eight people directly and 14 indirectly, both at his workplace and at the gym he attended, according to the police. Three of them were babies of only a year old, a police statement said.

The investigation began "at the end of January when authorities learned of the existence of a Covid-19 outbreak in a well-known establishment in Manacor," the statement said.

There have been almost 3.5 million recorded cases of Covid-19 in Spain, according to data from Johns Hopkins University, and more than 77,500 have died.