Australia’s deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce tests positive for coronavirus

Australia’s deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce has tested positive for Covid-19 after arriving in the US for an official visit.

Government authorities believe that Mr Joyce, who was visiting the UK earlier this week, contracted the infection there. Mr Joyce met Dominic Raab, British justice secretary, and George Brandis, the Australian high commissioner to the UK, on Wednesday, before travelling to Washington DC.

The deputy prime minister will now isolate himself in the US till it is safe for him to return to Australia, officials said. Mr Joyce got tested for the coronavirus infection after he experienced mild flu-like symptoms in Washington DC.

His office said the “remaining members of the delegation have tested negative” on Thursday morning.

The deputy prime minister said he did not know when and how he acquired the virus, but added that the UK was crowded with Christmas shoppers. “You wouldn’t think there’s a pandemic on in areas of the UK,” Mr Joyce told Sky News. He added that shoppers were lined up “shoulder to shoulder”.

Mr Joyce is expected to catch up on cricket and books while in isolation.

He added that contracting the virus has not changed his ideas about moving on from the pandemic. “I am still of the same view – you know, we can’t just shut the whole place down. The world’s got to move on. It’s not economically possible for any nation to go into permanent shutdown – you’ll go broke.”

It is “terribly important to work out how we keep people out of hospitals” and “to get our lives back to as normal as we can”, he said, according to The Guardian.

“I hope that in the future, rather than being isolated, this is like the flu, if you get it you go home and you manage it yourself. With the diligence of people, like you get a flu shot every year, get a Covid vaccine every year,” he said. “I mean that’s my dream – where the reality is I don’t know, but that is my dream.”