Luxembourg PM leaves hospital after Covid treatment

Luxembourg’s Prime Minister Xavier Bettel left hospital on Thursday after treatment for Covid-19 and will resume work this week, officials said.

A statement from Bettel’s government said his condition had improved, allowing him to work from home. He had been admitted to hospital on Sunday.

“Given the improvement of the Prime Minister’s health, Xavier Bettel has just left the hospital after four days of treatment,” the statement said.

“The prime minister will resume his duties as from Friday July 9,” it added. “The prime minister will use teleworking for the rest of the week, which also corresponds to the end of his period of isolation.”

Finance Minister Pierre Gramegna had been given authority to sign off on government business during the 48-year-old leader’s treatment. This will end on Friday.

Bettel, who has had only one of the expected two doses of coronavirus vaccine, is thought to have caught the coronavirus shortly before last week’s EU summit in Brussels.

At the meeting, during which Bettel reduced some leaders to tears with a personal intervention to decry Hungary’s controversial anti-LGBT law, he met his 27 colleagues.

But EU officials said proper social distancing and hygiene measures were in place and none of the other heads of state or government were asked to self-isolate.

Bettel was admitted for what was supposed to have been 24 hours of observation on Sunday, but on Monday his office said his situation was “serious but stable” and he remained under treatment.

An aide told AFP that at the time he was “short of breath but not intubated.”