Luxembourg’s Prime Minister Xavier Bettel has been admitted to hospital just days after testing positive for coronavirus.
The 48-year-old went to a hospital as a precaution on Sunday morning as he battled the virus, local media reported, citing a statement from his office.
He was expected to remain under observation for 24 hours while “additional tests and analyses” were carried out.
Mr Bettel, who received his first dose of the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine on May 6, tested positive for the disease and began self-isolating for 10 days on June 27 as he suffered mild symptoms including fever and a headache.
(Image: Isopix/REX/Shutterstock)
Before contracting Covid-19, the former TV presenter was due to receive his second jab on Thursday.
The positive test came two days after he attended a European Council meeting in Brussels with fellow EU national leaders.
None of the other 26 EU leaders who attended the summit were considered a contact case due to social distancing measures and other precautions that were in place during the meeting, according to officials.
Mr Bettel’s office had said he would work from home while in quarantine.
He was diagnosed with coronavirus at a time when the country of 630,000 residents has seen a surge in infections in the past fortnight.
A total of 136 tested positive for the virus on Saturday, the highest daily figure since mid-May.
(Image: REUTERS)
Since the pandemic began, Luxembourg has reported 71,031 confirmed cases and 818 deaths.
Before attending talks with other EU leaders, Mr Bettel, who is Luxembourg’s first openly gay prime minister, told his Hungarian counterpart Viktor Orban that Budapest was being discriminatory and stigmatising with its new law banning from schools materials deemed to promote homosexuality.
Mr Bettel, who is an advocate of gay rights and sometimes travels with his husband to official state visits, said he would challenge the Hungarian prime minister over the contentious law during their meeting.
“To be nationally blamed, to be considered as not normal, to be considered as a danger for young people – it’s not realising that being gay is not a choice,” Bettel said.
“But being intolerant is a choice. I would stay intolerant to intolerance and this would be today my fight… I am going to tell him that what he is doing in his country is intolerant and that being gay is not a choice.”
