He has been stuck inside his house in Ottawa since March 12 with his three young children. He has been juggling work meetings on his phone with parenting and household duties normally executed by his staff or his wife, who is sick.

Like millions of people around the world, Justin Trudeau has been improvising a new housebound routine in the time of the new coronavirus. The difference is, he’s running a G7 country.

Trudeau, Canada’s Prime Minister, was the first leader of a major industrialised country to go into self-isolation, when his wife, Sophie Grégoire Trudeau, came down with flu-like symptoms and later tested positive for the virus.

On Sunday, Germany’s chancellor, Angela Merkel, became the second, after learning that her doctor, who had given her a pneumonia shot a few days earlier, had tested positive for the virus. Merkel’s spokesman said on Monday that an initial test to determine if she had the virus was negative.

Trudeau could give her a few tips on working in isolation, since he has become a model for the prescribed way to prevent further spread of the disease — working alone in his home study, without his usual political aides or personal staff like nannies or cleaners.

“We are following medical advice, as should all Canadians,” he said at a news briefing, set up outside the front door of his house with cameras and reporters stationed a safe distance away. These daily briefings are the only time he has ventured outside his home since entering isolation.

Trudeau says he is healthy and has not displayed any symptoms of the virus himself. The initial reaction in Canada to his situation was mixed, reflecting the country’s deep political divide.

Some Canadians wished the Prime Minister well and praised him for “truly leading by example”. Others responded with personal attacks and demanded he stay isolated indefinitely.

Almost two months after the first Canadian was diagnosed with the coronavirus, the country’s count had risen by Monday morning to

1,474 confirmed cases and 20 deaths.

Trudeau’s schedule has continued apace, from within the confines of a government-owned 153-year-old red brick home, called Rideau Cottage, where he and his family have lived since being elected, because the country’s official Prime Minister’s residence is dangerously dilapidated and the prospect of renovating it politically toxic.

He has hosted daily meetings with his cabinet, checked in with provincial leaders and discussed strategies with Britain’s Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, and the French President Emmanuel Macron.

He made the decision with President Donald Trump to mostly close the border between their countries — the world’s largest international border — and introduced an economic package worth $82 billion in Canadian dollars to help Canadians weather the virus fallout. And he has done all of it by phone.

The one exception was a G7 teleconference, which required a technician in rubber gloves to enter the house and set up a camera, according to Ben Chin, the Prime Minister’s senior adviser.

But with his wife in quarantine in another part of their home, Trudeau has become a full-time parent for the couple’s three children — Xavier, 12, Ella-Grace, 11, and Hadrien, 6. A large box of Lego toys was dropped off, as are regular cooked meals. But there is no one except the Prime Minister inside to clean up, do laundry or oversee the children’s activities.

Trudeau was a few minutes late for one briefing with his staff, Chin said, because he was finishing the bath-time routine for Hadrien.

“You could hear the kids running around laughing, and playing in the background, and coming over saying, ‘Come on daddy, let’s do this,’” said Chin, who also has been in self-isolation since hugging a friend who later tested positive for the virus. He added: “You heard the half-muffled reasonable dad voice: ‘Daddy’s on an important phone call right now. I can’t do that.’”

His daughter has become his official photographer, snapping photos of him working in his office.