Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his fiancee, Carrie Symonds, on Wednesday morning announced the birth of a baby boy, adding another milestone to a year of dizzying ups and downs for the British leader.
Two days after Johnson returned to work following a serious illness caused by the coronavirus, he and Symonds, 32, said their baby had been born at a London hospital and was healthy.
Symonds had also suffered symptoms of the virus and had isolated herself during the period when Johnson, 55, was hospitalized. After three nights in intensive care, he was released on Easter Sunday.
Symonds and the baby are "doing very well," a spokeswoman for Johnson and his fiancee said, the BBC reported.
The prime minister will take a short paternity leave this year, a spokeswoman for Downing Street said by phone.
The couple announced in late February that Symonds, a former communications aide for the Conservative Party, was pregnant, and that they planned to be married this summer. A month later, Johnson contracted the virus and went into isolation.
Johnson had been scheduled to face off against the new Labour Party leader, Keir Starmer, in Prime Minister's Questions on Wednesday, which would have been their first encounter in those roles.
But Downing Street had been coy about whether Johnson would appear or hand off the duties to Dominic Raab, the foreign secretary, who had taken on many of the prime minister's duties while he was ill.
