President Steinmeier’s Quarantine Experience during COVID-19

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier reveals his temporary quarantine during the early COVID-19 pandemic to protect his wife, who is immunocompromised. He isolated himself in the attic while reading about the 1918 influenza pandemic.


President Steinmeier’s Quarantine Experience during COVID-19

The President of Germany, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, stated that at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, he had to retreat to a room at the back of his home for some time to avoid exposing his wife to potential danger. He told the magazine "Stern" that one of his security personnel, who accompanied him in a car from the region of Zwickau to Berlin, contracted the virus at the beginning of March 2020, and in accordance with the regulations in force at that time, he was forced to self-quarantine. Steinmeier once gifted his wife, Elke Büdenbender, a pocket watch in 2010, as she belongs to the group at the highest risk due to her weakened immune system as recipients of transplanted organs. The president continued: "During the time of quarantine isolation, I locked myself with books and a notebook in the back room, fell asleep on an air mattress. My wife and I avoided contact at home to minimize any potential risks to her health." He noted that he was reading in the back room the book "1918: Peace in the Heat" by Laura Spinney, calling it "unbearable." "When in the book, even during the period of pandemic restrictions, it is told how this so-called Spanish flu of 1918 took more lives in four months than the First World War in four years, it makes you ponder," added Steinmeier.