Trump and his wife Melania test positive for coronavirus
President Donald Trump, who played down the threat of the coronavirus pandemic for months, said on Friday that he and his wife Melania had tested positive for COVID-19 and were going into quarantine, upending the race for the White House. "We will begin our quarantine and recovery process immediately. We will get through this TOGETHER!" the president said in a tweet early on Friday morning.
Trump, 74, is at high risk with the deadly virus both because of his age and because he is considered overweight. He has remained in good health during his time in office but is not known to exercise regularly or to follow a healthy diet. Trump understated the seriousness of the coronavirus outbreak in its early stages and has repeatedly predicted it would go away. On Thursday night he said the end of the pandemic was in sight. He rarely wears a mask and criticizes people, including Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, who do.
More than 200,000 people have died from COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus, in the United States alone. The elderly and those with pre-existing conditions have been especially hard hit. Trump, a Republican, urged U.S. states to reopen shuttered economies even as the number of cases continued to soar and knocked Democratic governors for putting tough measures into place to bring the virus under control.
His health scare, which rattled financial markets, shifts the 2020 presidential campaign dramatically. With only weeks before the Nov. 3 election, Trump will now be sidelined from doing in-person events after holding a slew of rallies with thousands of people at indoor and outdoor venues, against the advice of public health professionals. Biden leads Trump in national polls.
Trump's positive test also means that others at the highest levels of the U.S. government have been exposed and may have to quarantine, too. A White House official said early on Friday that contact tracing was under way.
Trump's
physician,
Sean
Conley, said he expected the president to carry out his duties "without disruption" while he recovers. "The President and First Lady are both well at this time, and they plan to remain at home within the White House during their convalescence," Conley wrote in a memo that was distributed to the press. Leaders around the world wished Trump a speedy recovery. Biden has criticized Trump sharply for his response to the pandemic; the president has praised himself and his team. On Thursday night, shortly after Trump predicted the pandemic's end was in sight, news broke that Hope Hicks, a top adviser and trusted aide, had tested positive for the virus.
Hicks traveled with the president on Air Force One on Tuesday and Wednesday. The White House issued a new schedule for Trump's activities on Friday that did not include a planned trip to Florida. Biden plans to campaign in Michigan on Friday. Both states are swing states that could help decide the U.S. election.
The president's condition is likely to bring the pandemic back to center stage in the race, after the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Trump's subsequent nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to fill her seat shifted the campaign's focus.
Trump, who has been criticized for questioning the efficacy of wearing a face covering, produced a mask from his pocket in his first debate against Biden on Tuesday and said, "I wear masks when needed. When needed, I wear masks." He then ridiculed the former vice president for putting one on regularly: "I don't wear masks like him. Every time you see him, he's got a mask.
He could be speaking 200 feet away from them and he shows up with the biggest mask I've ever seen," Trump said. Health professionals say that face coverings are key to preventing the virus from spreading. The White House has had previous coronavirus scares.
Vice President Mike Pence's spokeswoman, Katie Miller, tested positive earlier this year and suffered symptoms before recovering. A military valet also came down with the virus.