The UK health secretary, Sajid Javid, has tested positive for coronavirus and has mild symptoms, he has said. In a video posted on Twitter on Saturday, Javid wrote: “This morning I tested positive for Covid. I’m waiting for my PCR result, but thankfully I have had my jabs and symptoms are mild.” Javid got the positive result from a lateral flow test he took after feeling “a bit groggy” on Friday night. He said he was self-isolating at home with his family.
Javid was made health secretary last month after his predecessor, Matt Hancock, resigned following the leak of a video showing him kissing his closest aide, Gina Coladangelo, in his ministerial office – in breach of his own Covid-19 rules. Javid urged anyone who had not been vaccinated against Covid-19 to come forward to get a jab. He said: “I also want to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has been involved in our national vaccine rollout programme, truly the best of its kind anywhere in the world. “If you haven’t had your jabs yet, please get out there and get them as soon as you can, and if, like me, you might feel a bit groggy or you think you might have come into contact with someone who is positive, please also take a lateral flow test too. “If everyone plays their part, you’re not only protecting yourself and your loved ones but you’re also safeguarding the NHS and helping to preserve our way of life.” New daily infections in the UK passed 50,000 for the second day in a row on Saturday and there were 41 deaths within 28 days of a positive test, bringing the UK total to 128,683. Boris Johnson is set to lift Covid restrictions across England on Monday, as more than 1,200 international scientists and health experts urged the government to scrap the “dangerous experiment” of “freedom day”. On Saturday, the former health secretary Jeremy Hunt said the situation was “very serious” and said the government must be prepared to “change directions” if Covid cases continued to rise over the summer and into the autumn. • This article was amended on 26 July 2021 to change Sajid Javid’s job title from England’s health secretary to UK health secretary.