Slovakia’s PM has Covid-19 after attending EU summit where Macron is thought to have got virus

Slovak Prime Minister Igor Matovic said today he had tested positive for Covid-19, a week after he attended an EU summit in Brussels.

The summit is believed to be where French President Emmanuel Macron caught the virus, leading a host of European leaders and top French officials to rush into self-isolation.

‘Today, I am one of you,’ Matovic wrote on his Facebook page, attaching a screenshot of a text message with his test results. 

‘For nine months I have been battling people who measure the pandemic just by the number of closed bars and incite people against measures and the government,’ he said. 

‘Now it seems it will be a different holiday.’   

Macron is suffering a fever, a cough and fatigue and has a military doctor at his bedside in Versailles after catching coronavirus, it emerged today. 

Macron, 42, is staying at a residence called La Lanterne after testing positive for Covid-19 in a result which sparked frantic contact-tracing among EU leaders.  

The Elysee’s chief physician Jean-Christophe Perrochon is staying with Macron during his quarantine, according to Le Parisien, while first lady Brigitte Macron, 67, is isolating separately in Paris. 

While Macron is in a younger age group than most world leaders and is not known to have any medical problems, he had already developed symptoms by the time his diagnosis was announced on Thursday.

It comes as Slovak Prime Minister Igor Matovic today announced he has also tested positive for Covid-19, a week after he attended an EU summit in Brussels with Macron and 23 other EU leaders.

Macron is suffering from fever, cough and fatigue, officials with the presidency said on Friday. 

They would not provide details of his treatment. 

In the days before his positive test, he had rubbed shoulders with a long list of EU leaders in Paris and Brussels – with the leaders of Spain and Portugal among those now in isolation.      

Macron, who joins Britain’s Boris Johnson and US president Donald Trump in a growing list of world leaders who have contracted Covid-19, will isolate for seven days but plans to continue running the country via video conference. 

He has also cancelled a planned December 22 trip to Lebanon, where he has been spearheading efforts at reform after the disastrous Beirut port explosion in August.  

Last night, Macron appeared on screen at a conference on French foreign aid policy, wearing a mask but not looking visibly ill. 

On Thursday, an aide to Mr Macron admitted that Mr Macron made an ‘unfortunate’ mistake in shaking hands with fellow politicians, saying: ‘There’s no denying it.’ 

Macron had embraced Portuguese premier Antonio Costa as recently as Wednesday, and shook hands with 70-year-old OECD chief Jose Angel Gurria on Monday.

A presidential official indicated that Macron was likely already infected by then because he had probably contracted the virus at last week’s EU summit. 

Macron mingled with fellow EU leaders in the summit room and was filmed giving fist-bumps to some of his counterparts. 

Slovak Prime Minister Igor Matovic announced today he had tested positive for Covid-19 after attending the summit. 

‘Today, I am one of you,’ Matovic wrote on his Facebook page, attaching a screenshot of a text message with his test results.

German chancellor Angela Merkel, 66, tested negative for the virus after attending the summit along with all but two of the EU’s 27 heads of government.     

The president took a test ‘as soon as the first symptoms appeared,’ the Elysee said in a brief statement on Thursday morning. 

An official added later that he was experiencing ‘light symptoms’ which he had started to feel late on Wednesday.

Political party chiefs from the Senate and National Assembly, said they would do the same because they had a lunch with Mr Macron on Tuesday.

French government guidelines call for no more than six people to dine together during the pandemic, but there were as many as 20 people around Macron’s table.

Boris Johnson, who had an alarming scare with the virus in April, sent best wishes to his ‘friend’ Mr Macron in English and French on Thursday.  

Mr Johnson tweeted: ‘Sorry to hear my friend Emmanuel Macron has tested positive for coronavirus. We are all wishing you a speedy recovery.’ 

EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, said she was with the French president ‘with all my heart’.

‘We are going to defeat this pandemic together,’ she said on Twitter. ‘We will continue to work hand in hand to immunise and protect our citizens.’

A key aspect of the EU talks was how to implement a Covid vaccine on the continent. 

The EU is lagging behind Britain, which has already begun injecting people with the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine. 

A decision by the EU’s regulator is expected in the coming days, according to officials including Germany’s health minister Jens Spahn. 

Also dominating discussions was Brexit, with Macron coming into close quarters with both Merkel and Von der Leyen.

He was also seen gesturing in Hungarian leader Viktor Orban’s face while standing just a few yards from Austrian chancellor Sebastian Kurz. 

Others in attendance included Dutch PM Mark Rutte, Belgian PM Alexander De Croo, Italian PM Giuseppe Conte and European Parliament president David Sassoli. 

Days after the summit, Macron took Portugal’s 59-year-old PM Antonio Costa in his arms on the steps of the Elysee.   

He also welcomed dignitaries on Monday for an OECD meeting attended by Spanish PM Pedro Sanchez and European Council president Charles Michel.   

Sanchez, Costa and Michel are among those isolating, although none of them say they have tested positive.    

Macron’s wife Brigitte has gone into isolation for the second time, having quarantined in October after coming into contact with someone who tested positive.  

France earlier this week eased restrictions imposed to battle the second wave of the coronavirus but infection rates remain high.

There is still a nationwide overnight curfew from 8 pm to halt the spread of the virus while restaurants and cafes as well as theatres and cinemas remain closed.

Over 59,300 people have died in France of coronavirus since the start of the pandemic, according to official figures.

The recording of over 17,000 new cases on Wednesday alone has also generated concern as people shop and travel more intensely ahead of the Christmas holidays.

Like other EU states, France is pinning its hopes on the vaccine to quell the virus and Castex said Wednesday the country will receive around 1.16 million Covid-19 vaccine doses by year end.

Castex said that the start of the vaccine campaign was conditional on approval from the European Medicines Agency, expected on December 21.

‘It is only at the end of spring that we will open the vaccination programme to the entire population,’ he added.

‘Vaccines are a major source of hope but if you look at the vaccination capabilities that we will have in France and elsewhere in Europe, we will need time,’ immunologist Jean-François Delfraissy told BFM television this morning.

Delfraissy estimated there were 22 million people in France more vulnerable than others and that it could take until May to vaccinate them all, before shots could be rolled out to others.

Another problem for the French authorities is that according to an opinion poll, only 53 percent of people want to be vaccinated, among the lowest rates in the world. 

France had Europe’s first virus case in January, but Macron’s government came under criticism for not having enough masks or tests and not confining the population quickly enough. 

A strict two-month lockdown brought infections down, and France sent children back to school and their parents back to work.

But infections surged again this fall so he declared a new, softer lockdown in October aimed at relieving pressure on hospitals. 

The measures were relaxed slightly this week, though restaurants, tourist sites, gyms and some other facilities remain closed.