Coronavirus: Europe
British PM self-isolating after MP tests positive
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British Prime Minister Boris Johnson had been told by the NHS Test & Trace scheme to self-isolate for two weeks.
PHOTO: AFP
LONDON • British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said yesterday he was in "good health" and had no symptoms despite self-isolating after an MP he was in contact with tested positive for Covid-19.
"It doesn't matter that I'm fit as a butcher's dog, feel great... that I've had the disease and I'm bursting with antibodies," he said in a video released on Twitter. "We've got to interrupt the spread of the disease and one of the ways we can do that now is by self-isolating for 14 days when contacted by Test and Trace," he added, saying he would lead the virus response from his Downing Street home.
Mr Johnson spent three days in intensive care with the coronavirus in April.
This time round, he said he was not suffering any symptoms and Health Minister Matt Hancock yesterday described him as "full of beans".
The Prime Minister was informed by the Test and Trace scheme that he should self-isolate after Conservative MP Lee Anderson, who Mr Johnson met last Thursday, tested positive for the virus.
Mr Johnson was out of action for nearly a month when he caught the virus during the first wave of infections from March.
But the Conservative Party leader said he would have "plenty more to say by Zoom and other means of electronic communication" during this spell in isolation.
He added that his coronavirus case was seriously worsened by being overweight, but that he had since lost 12kg.
"I am going to continue that diet, because you've got to search for the hero inside of yourself, in the hope that that individual is considerably slimmer," he joked last month.
Britain has been the worst-hit nation in Europe, recording over 50,000 coronavirus deaths from 1.2 million positive cases.
But Mr Johnson said the country now had two "gigantic boxing gloves with which to wallop" the virus in the shape of mass rapid-turnaround testing and a potential vaccine that he said could be available for the most vulnerable citizens before Christmas.
The government announced yesterday that daily testing capacity is set to more than double early next year with the opening of two new "megalabs" processing up to 600,000 samples a day.
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE