Canada's Trudeau remains in isolation after wife recovers from virus
MONTREAL, Canada — Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Sunday that he would remain in self-imposed isolation even though his wife, who had contracted the coronavirus, has recovered.
Although Sophie Gregoire Trudeau received the all-clear from her physicians on Saturday, the prime minister said, and he himself has no symptoms, he had been "sharing a roof with someone who tested positive for COVID-19."
"I have to continue in isolation in order to be sure that we’re following all the protocols and the recommendations by Health Canada," Trudeau said.
Since doctors did not know exactly when Sophie Trudeau became virus-free, the prime minister said he would observe another 14 full days of confinement.
Addressing reporters from the porch of his Rideau Cottage residence in Ottawa, Trudeau noted that workers across Canada had discovered that they can do an "awful lot of work via telephone, via video conferences — and that's exactly what I am doing."
The prime minister has been in self-isolation since his wife tested positive for the coronavirus on March 12 following a trip to London.
She announced Saturday that her physicians had pronounced her cured, giving her a green light to return to normal life.
Justin Trudeau said his wife had taken their children to Harrington Lake, just northwest of Ottawa, the site of a summer residence and official retreat for Canadian prime ministers.
Trudeau also announced new financial measures to help vulnerable Canadians — particularly children and the aged — hard hit by the side-effects of the coronavirus.
Asked at the news conference whether he might call on Canada's armed forces to help enforce officially imposed travel curbs, Trudeau said he had no plans to do so for now.
Separately, Dr. Theresa Tam, Canada's chief public health officer, called on Canadians returning to their country to strictly respect the 14 days of confinement imposed by the government.
She referred in particular to "snowbirds" — the Canadians who pass much of the winter in Florida and other warmer locales, many of whom have recently been returning home.
As of Sunday, 6,243 Canadians had tested positive for the coronavirus, and 64 have died, according to a tally from Johns Hopkins University.
Follow this page for updates on a mysterious pneumonia outbreak that has struck dozens of people in China.
New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Hipkins says on Sunday that he had contracted COVID-19, testing positive at a key point in his flailing campaign for re-election.
Hipkins saYS on his official social media feed that he would need to isolate for up to five days -- less than two weeks before his country's general election.
The leader of the centre-left Labour Party said he started to experience cold symptoms on Saturday and had cancelled most of his weekend engagements. — AFP
The World Health Organization and US health authorities say Friday they are closely monitoring a new variant of COVID-19, although the potential impact of BA.2.86 is currently unknown.
The WHO classified the new variant as one under surveillance "due to the large number (more than 30) of spike gene mutations it carries", it wrote in a bulletin about the pandemic late Thursday.
So far, the variant has only been detected in Israel, Denmark and the United States. — AFP
The World Health Organization says on Friday that the number of new COVID-19 cases reported worldwide rose by 80% in the last month, days after designating a new "variant of interest".
The WHO declared in May that Covid is no longer a global health emergency, but has warned that the virus will continue to circulate and mutate, causing occasional spikes in infections, hospitalisations and deaths.
In its weekly update, the UN agency said that nations reported nearly 1.5 million new cases from July 10 to August 6, an 80% increase compared to the previous 28 days. — AFP
The head of US intelligence says that there was no evidence that the COVID-19 virus was created in the Chinese government's Wuhan research lab.
In a declassified report, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) says they had no information backing recent claims that three scientists at the lab were some of the very first infected with COVID-19 and may have created the virus themselves.
Drawing on intelligence collected by various member agencies of the US intelligence community (IC), the ODNI report says some scientists at the Wuhan lab had done genetic engineering of coronaviruses similar to COVID-19. — AFP
Boris Johnson deliberately misled MPs over Covid lockdown-breaking parties in Downing Street when he was prime minister, a UK parliament committee ruled on Thursday.
The cross-party Privileges Committee said Johnson, 58, would have been suspended as an MP for 90 days for "repeated contempts (of parliament) and for seeking to undermine the parliamentary process".
But he avoided any formal sanction by his peers in the House of Commons by resigning as an MP last week.
In his resignation statement last Friday, Johnson pre-empted publication of the committee's conclusions, claiming a political stitch-up, even though the body has a majority from his own party.
He was unrepentant again on Thursday, accusing the committee of being "anti-democratic... to bring about what is intended to be the final knife-thrust in a protracted political assassination".
Calling it "beneath contempt", he said it was "for the people of this to decide who sits in parliament, not Harriet Harman", the veteran opposition Labour MP who chaired the seven-person committee. — AFP
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