German chancellor tests positive for COVID-19

BERLIN (AA) – German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said he tested positive for COVID-19 on Monday, but will continue his official duties while isolating.

“With few symptoms, I'm counting on a mild course and just working from my desk for now,” he said on social media.

Scholz’s spokesman said the chancellor’s planned face-to-face meetings today and tomorrow, including a scheduled meeting with Slovakia’s Prime Minister Robert Fico on Tuesday, had to be canceled.

Scholz will continue his official duties with telephone and videoconference communications but there will be no face-to-face meetings in these days, his spokesman Steffen Hebestreit told a news conference in Berlin.

Scholz had also tested positive for COVID-19 in September 2022. At that time he spent his isolation period in the Federal Chancellery.

The small apartment there “is ideal because I can easily do my work from here,” he told media at that time.