MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Canadian PM tests positive for COVID-19 while sheltering from protesters

Trudeau said acts of hooliganism on the part on anti-vaccine protesters needed to stop

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who last week was relocated to an undisclosed residence as the caravan of truckers gathered in Ottawa to protest against vaccination mandates, Monday announced on twitter he had tested positive for COVID-19.

The Canadian capital was filled over the weekend with loud honks from protesters who opposed Tudeau's vaccine mandates. Sporadic honking resumed in the early hours of Monday as lorries continued to block streets downtown.

Last Thursday Trudeau had said he he would self-isolate for five days after learning he had been in contact with someone infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus, who turned out to be one of his three children.

The Prime Minister said he was “feeling fine” and would continue to work remotely. He also urged Canadians to “get vaccinated and back up.”

“It's a big challenge that my family and I are facing but there's nothing unusual or special about it. It's a challenge too many Canadians and people around the world know all too well,” Trudeau, who took his first two doses of immunizer last year and received a booster dose at an Ottawa pharmacy earlier this month, explained during a press conference.

The Prime Minister also underlined the Omicron variant hit high levels in many parts of the country.

The truckers' protest was focused initially on the federal government's vaccine mandate for cross-border drivers and later expanded into a movement against the curtailing of individual freedoms in the form of measures to limit the spread of COVID-19.

Ottawa police described the protests as mainly peaceful but said threatening behaviour and public mischief had been reported over the weekend, all diusgusting actions which shocked most Canadians, according to Trudeau, who added that the presence of swastikas and Confederate flags in addition to the desecration of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and acts of hooliganism at a local shelter for homeless people was not to be tolerated and “it needs to stop.”

The truckers had collected around CAN $ 9 million from a GoFundMe, which would prove the support the movement has nationwide to press the government into repealing vaccine mandates.

While Canadians have the right to protest, no one has a right “to abuse, intimidate and harass ... fellow citizens,” the Prime Minister pointed out as he vowed move forward with sanitary decisions despite “intimidation” from some members of the convoy.