After Jean Castex, Brigitte Klinkert also positive for Covid-19 – The HuffPost

Benoit Tessier via Reuters

CORONAVIRUS – The French Prime Minister, who was tested positive Monday evening for Covid-19, is no longer the only one in government who has to stand aside because of contamination.

On the evening of Tuesday, November 23, the Minister for Integration within the Ministry of Labor also announced on Twitter that she had contracted the coronavirus.

Brigitte Klinkert details on the platform: “After being declared a contact case of a person who tested positive for Covid-19, this morning I carried out a PCR test which turned out to be positive”.

“Having no symptoms at this stage, I adjusted my agenda to continue my activities in isolation,” she continues.

After being declared a contact case of a person who tested positive for COVID-19, this morning I carried out a PCR test which turned out to be positive. Having no symptoms at this stage, I adjusted my agenda to continue my activities in isolation.

– Brigitte Klinkert (@KlinkertBrigitt) November 23, 2021

In particular, the Minister was not one of the people who had accompanied Castex during his trip to Brussels on Monday morning for a meeting on the topic of security. The Ministers of the Armed Forces, Florence Parly, of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, of Justice, Éric Dupond-Moretti, of the Secretary of State for Europe, Clément Beaune, were present.

Jean Castex’s agenda “will be adjusted over the next few days so that he can continue his activities while being in isolation” for ten days, said Matignon. The Prime Minister suffered Monday evening from “slight symptoms”, according to his entourage, in particular a “slight cough”.

He had learned on Monday afternoon that one of his 11-year-old daughters had tested positive. “He therefore immediately performed a PCR test, which turned out to be positive,” explained Matignon. Matignon said that Jean Castex had not seen Emmanuel Macron since the Council of Ministers on Wednesday morning.

The head of the French government, 56, had been vaccinated in the spring, his second injection of AstraZeneca dating from June 19, and was eligible for a booster dose on December 19. Since the start of the pandemic, he had already been in contact with Covid-19 on three occasions: in September 2020 during the Tour de France after sharing the car of the director of the competition, Christian Prudhomme, a second time after ‘a dinner with Emmanuel Macron in December, then in June, after Castex’s wife contracted the disease.

Before him, President Emmanuel Macron had tested positive in December 2020. Several ministers also contracted the virus, such as the Minister of the Economy, Bruno Le Maire, that of Culture, Roselyne Bachelot. That of Foreign Trade Franck Riester had tested positive in March 2020, as well as the Secretaries of State for the Ecological Transition at the time, Brune Poirson and Emmanuelle Wargon.

See also on The HuffPost: How the government defends Castex against negligence charges