LONDON (Reuters) -British health minister Sajid Javid on Saturday said he had tested positive for COVID-19, but that his symptoms were mild and he had had two doses of vaccine against the disease.
Javid, who has been health secretary for three weeks, has backed Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s plan to fully re-open England’s economy and scrap legal coronavirus restrictions from Monday.
“This morning I tested positive for COVID,” he said in a tweet, adding he had taken a rapid lateral flow test, and was awaiting confirmation from a PCR test, which needs processing in a laboratory.
“I’m waiting for my PCR result, but thankfully I have had my jabs and symptoms are mild.”
Javid tweeted on March 17 that he had received a first shot of Oxford/AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine, posting a picture of him getting a second dose on May 16.
Britain is facing a new wave of cases of COVID-19, but Johnson and Javid say that the vaccine programme has largely broken the link between COVID-19 cases and deaths.
Britain has fully vaccinated two-thirds of adults, but is not vaccinating children. Some scientists have warned that the government’s reopening plans are dangerous given the significant number of people who remain unvaccinated and the fact that vaccines are not 100% effective.
(Reporting by Alistair Smout; Editing by Catherine Evans and Christina Fincher)
