British PM Boris Johnson tests positive for Covid-19
LONDON: British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said yesterday he had tested positive for coronavirus and was self-isolating at Downing Street but would still lead the government’s response to the accelerating outbreak.
Mr Johnson, 55, experienced mild symptoms on Thursday — a day after he answered at the prime minister’s weekly question-and-answer session in parliament’s House of Commons chamber.
“I’ve taken a test. That has come out positive,” Mr Johnson said in a video statement broadcast on Twitter. “I’ve developed mild symptoms of the coronavirus. That’s to say — a temperature and a persistent cough.
“So I am working from home. I’m self-isolating. Be in no doubt that I can continue, thanks to the wizardry of modern technology, to communicate with all my top team to lead the national fightback against coronavirus.”
It was not immediately clear how many Downing Street staff and senior ministers would now need to isolate given that many have had contact with Mr Johnson over recent days and weeks.
His finance minister, Rishi Sunak, was not self-isolating, a Treasury source said.
When Britain clapped health workers on Thursday evening, Mr Johnson and Mr Sunak came out of separate entrances on Downing Street and did not come into close contact, according to a Reuters photographer at the scene.
Nor was it immediately clear whether Mr Johnson’s 32-year-old partner, Carrie Symonds, who is pregnant, had been tested.