COVID-19
Lagarde tests positive for Covid-19 days before ECB meeting
European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde tested positive for Covid-19 just days before policy makers’ next decision, and said the diagnosis won’t affect the operations of her institution.
The ECB’s Governing Council meets on April 13-14 to set monetary policy for the euro area. A spokesperson for the central bank said the post-meeting press conference will go ahead as planned, with the format to be decided in the coming days.
In December, ECB Vice President Luis de Guindos also contracted the virus days before a policy meeting and joined the concluding press briefing remotely at that time. Andrea Enria, the head of the central bank’s supervisory arm, had Covid in January.
ECB officials are weighing how to respond to record inflation in the currency bloc while the war in Ukraine darkens the economic outlook. Some have held out the possibility of raising interest rates this year, though they’ve also stressed the need to keep options open and to act on the basis of incoming data.