Raab and Shapps in isolation after close contact with Australian deputy PM

Two UK cabinet ministers have gone into isolation after being in close contact with the Australian deputy prime minister, Barnaby Joyce, who later tested positive for Covid.

Dominic Raab, the deputy prime minister and justice secretary, and Grant Shapps, the transport secretary, pulled out of events after their contact with Joyce when he visited London earlier this week.

Under the law, close contacts of positive Covid cases do not have to isolate as long as they get a PCR test and the result comes back negative. However, anyone who is a close contact of someone confirmed or suspected of being infected with the Omicron variant must take daily tests.

Joyce, who is fully vaccinated, has since left the UK and tested positive only once he was in Washington.

He said in a Facebook post on Thursday that he was experiencing mild symptoms, had been tested and was isolating, awaiting further advice.

Most cabinet ministers in the UK have had to isolate at several points during the pandemic, either because of catching Covid themselves or being identified as a close contact.

Coronavirus spread through parliament rapidly at the start of the pandemic, and two of the first Omicron variant cases discovered in the UK were tracked down to the region of Westminster.