A senior Australian minister who tested positive for the coronavirus had met with Ivanka Trump and Attorney General William Barr only days earlier.
Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton, who was hospitalized Friday, was in the US last week for a meeting with members of the Five Eyes intelligence alliance — the US, Australia, the UK, Canada and New Zealand. The get-together included Barr, according to Agence France-Presse.
On March 6, Dutton also met with Ivanka Trump, the president’s daughter and senior adviser, according to an image posted by the Australian embassy in Washington, which shows the two standing close together.
It was not immediately known when Dutton contracted COVID-19.
“This morning I woke up with a temperature and sore throat,” Dutton said. “It is the policy of Queensland Health that anyone who tests positive is to be admitted into hospital and I have complied with their advice.”
On Friday, the prime minister’s office confirmed that Dutton had attended a cabinet meeting on Tuesday, but said that participants would not be quarantined.
“Only people who had close contact with the minister in the preceding 24 hours before he became symptomatic need to self-isolate,” a spokesman said.”That does not include the Prime Minister or any other members of the Cabinet.”
Australia has seen about 184 confirmed cases of the coronavirus and three fatalities
