The Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi Tests Positive for Covid-19

By Tony Winterburn • Published: 02 Sep 2020 • 22:20

Former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi has tested positive for coronavirus, he had recently returned from a trip to Sardinia.

IN a statement, officials from his political party, Forza Italia said that 83-year-old Berlusconi, a media tycoon and former political heavyweight, was now in isolation at his home in Arcore near Milan. His personal doctor, Alberto Zangrillo, also confirmed that the politician was “asymptomatic.”

The former Italian prime minister had recently met Flavio Briatore, who owned a nightclub at the heart of a coronavirus cluster. Briatore was admitted to hospital last week after contracting the virus and is now isolating at home. “I came to visit my friend, the president: I love him so much and find him in good shape. Bravo Silvio,” Briatore said in a short video posted on Instagram.

An old friend of the PM, businessman Flavio Briatore, was treated in hospital after testing positive for Covid-19 last month.

Staff added that the former premier and current president of Forza Italia party would be working from home during quarantine, and would continue to contribute to the campaigns of local candidates of his party in local elections scheduled for this month.

Mr Berlusconi is perhaps best known around the world for fabulously popular and infamous ‘bunga bunga’ sex parties. He went on trial in 2012 accused of paying for an underage prostitute at the gatherings and was initially convicted but was later acquitted (sparking a public outcry) after it was ruled he could not have known the prostitute was underage.

Palazzo Grazioli, the home of Berlusconi for some 25 years, was a place of decision making and political meetings of note.