German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is currently self-quarantining, tested negative on her first coronavirus test.
Merkel, 65, self-quarantined on Sunday after her doctor tested positive for the flu-like virus. Merkel’s spokesman Steffen Seibert said that she would receive daily tests, the first of which turned up negative.
“The test result of today’s test is negative,” Seibert said on Monday. “Further tests will be carried out in the next few days.”
Prior to her quarantine, Merkel delivered a televised address during which she compared the growing pandemic to World War II in the amount of mass cooperation required by German citizens.
“This is serious. And we must take it seriously,” she said on Wednesday. “There has been no such challenge to our country since German reunification, no, not since the Second World War, that relies so heavily on us all working together in solidarity.”
Germany has seen almost 30,000 cases of the coronavirus, about 400 recoveries, and 118 deaths, according to the latest reading by the Johns Hopkins University tracker. Worldwide, there have been more than 372,000 cases of COVID-19, about 100,000 recoveries, and at least 16,300 deaths.
