World leaders who have caught Covid-19

Around the world a host of other world leaders/states peoples have contracted the COVID-19 virus. Here is a list of some, though obviously not exhaustive, world leaders who have caught Covid-19.

This week we learned that the first President of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev, contracted COVID-19. Nursultan, the former communist leader, then iron fisted President, ruled Kazakhstan from its Independence in 1991 until 2019 and is certainly Kazakhstan’s most high-profile individual to contract the disease. However, he’s certainly not the only high ranking official in Kazakhstan to catch it, with a host of ministers and even the speaker of their Parliament also on the list.

The UK has certainly had its problems dealing with the Coronavirus with even Bojo catching it and claiming to have come close to death. Not only the Prime Minister Boris Johnson, but also Prince Charles, who dutifully spent 2 weeks in quarantine and has since been pronounced COVID free.

Prince Charles wasn’t the only European Royal to catch the virus, with Prince Albert of Monaco coming down with breathing issues and other symptoms. However, Prince Albert is a Winter Olympic athlete who is considered quite the sportsman, so not surprisingly he had little issue overcoming to the virus.

Not all have been as lucky though with some fatalities related to COVID. Burundi President, Pierre Nkurunziza, very recently passed away. Though the government said it was a heart attack, despite the fact he had tested positive for the virus. His widowed wife now has the virus also. The Prime Minister of another African country, Prime Minister of Guinea-Bissau, Nuno Gomes Nabiam, and three of his minsters also tested positive, but all seem to be doing well.

One of the hardest hit countries very early on was Iran. Ali Larijani, the then-speaker of the parliament of Iran, tested positive for the Coronavirus in early April, becoming the most senior member of the Iranian parliament to do so. Iran had a huge list of government officials who contracted the virus though, he certainly wasn’t the only one.

One of the more interesting individuals was Yaakov Litzman, Israel’s health minister, who tested positive for the Coronavirus. Litzman apparently caught the virus participating in a group pray which he, as health minister, had banned. Litzman, an Orthodox Jew, was disparaging of the Coronavirus from the start and resistant to any measures to prevent the spread.

Litzman is not the only one to catch the virus who had ignored/criticised restrictions in places to slow the spread though, with American Libertarian poster-boy Rand Paul, catching Corona.

Despite a recently epic success in Irish elections, the leader of Sinn Fein, Mary Lou McDonald has returned a positive test, which is all the more unusual since Ireland has been one of the more successful examples of Corona response.

Finally, despite the fact that Vladimir Putin has probably never even had a cold, his Prime Minister did catch COVID. A large array of Russian politicians have caught the virus, another country struggling to deal with the spread. Many of you may have seen the measures Putin is now taking to protect himself, so let’s see how that pans out.

And that’s it for our high-profile list of world leaders who have caught Covid-19. Follow our blog to see the most recent development of the impact of the pandemic on the travel world.