Australia PM tests positive for COVID again, to work from home

After testing positive for COVID-19 in April this year, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has once again tested positive for the virus

Sydney, Dec 06: Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Monday announced that he has tested positive for COVID-19 and would work from home while in isolation. This is the second time Albanese has been infected by coronavirus after testing positive in April towards the beginning of his electoral campaign.

Taking to micro-blogging platform Twitter, Albanese said, ''This afternoon I had a routine PCR test which returned a positive result for COVID-19. I will be isolating (myself) and will continue to work from home. I encourage anyone who is unwell to test and to take any extra precautions to keep their families and neighbours well.''

It must be noted that in the month of October, Australia had ended mandatory home quarantine for coronavirus infected people. Sydney has been in lockdown since June 26 and the government had hoped that the spread would be halted by August 28.

Albanese is due to make a two-day trip to Papua New Guinea on December 12-13.

Australia is in the middle of a fourth Covid-19 wave, driven by a range of Omicron sub-variants driving up case numbers and people have been seeking the booster dose to avoid falling ill. "All indications are that this is the start of a new COVID-19 wave in Australia," Australia's Chief Health officer Paul Kelly was quoted as saying last week.

This comes as WHO estimates that at least 90 per cent of the world's population now has some level of immunity to SARS-CoV2, due to prior infection or vaccination. Last week, WHO Director-General Tedros Ghebreyesus said the number of weekly deaths reported to WHO has declined slightly over the past five weeks, but more than 8,500 people lost their lives last week.