Donald Trump has tested positive for coronavirus
WASHINGTON, Oct 3 (NNN-AGENCIES) — US President Donald Trump moved to a hospital facility on Friday following a positive Covid-19 test that forced officials to cancel White House events and postpone travel, injecting new uncertainty into the final stretch of the 2020 election campaign.
Trump, wearing a blue mask, gave a thumb’s up sign but made no comment as he walked to the Marine One helicopter that carried him to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.
He will quarantine at the Bethesda, Md., facility, based on the recommendation of his physician and medical experts, and he will work from the presidential offices there in the next few days, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said.
McEnany said the president’s symptoms were mild and the move was made out of an abundance of caution.
Earlier Friday, White House physician Sean Conley said the president was fatigued and that first lady Melania Trump, who also tested positive, had a mild cough and headache.
As Trump left the White House, he tweeted a recorded video in which he thanked people for their support. “I think I’m doing very well, but we’re going to make sure that things work out,” he said. He said the first lady is “doing very well.”
The diagnosis rippled through the White House, as at least seven people who attended the president’s Supreme Court announcement in the White House Rose Garden last weekend said they had since tested positive and officials also looked to track down other people who may have been exposed.
Until his video late Friday and his trip to the hospital, he hadn’t tweeted or appeared publicly since announcing his and the first lady’s diagnosis after midnight, which came shortly after news reports that close aide Hope Hicks had tested positive.
White House officials insisted Friday that Trump’s diagnosis wouldn’t affect his governing. “We have a president that is not only on the job, he will remain on the job,” White House chief of staff Mark Meadows said.
The news comes just over a month before presidential elections, where he will face Democratic challenger Joe Biden.
Biden himself and his wife Jill tested negative on Friday.
“I hope this serves as a reminder,” he tweeted after the result. “Wear a mask, keep social distance, and wash your hands.”
There has been criticism of Trump’s decision to go to a fundraiser attended by dozens of people in New Jersey on Thursday, apparently when officials already knew about Hicks’s symptoms.
Hicks, 31, travelled with Trump on Air Force One to the first presidential TV debate with Biden in Ohio on Tuesday. Some of Trump’s family members who attended the debate were seen not wearing masks.
Trump has mostly spurned mask-wearing and has often been pictured not socially distanced with aides or others during official engagements.
The coronavirus has infected more than 7.2 million Americans, killing more than 200,000 of them. — NNN-AGENCIES
