White House Says Trump Has Tested Negative for Coronavirus
Written by SOURCE on March 15, 2020
Donald Trump has reportedly tested negative for the novel coronavirus.
The White House announced the results in a memo Saturday night, about a week after Trump came into contact with two people who later tested positive for the virus. The president was potentially exposed during a dinner with Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro at Mar-a-Lago. Though Bolsonaro reportedly tested negative for coronavirus, his communications chief Fabio Wajngarten and Brazil’s charge d’affairs Nestor Forster—both of whom attended the dinner with Trump—tested positive.
“Last night after an in-depth discussion with the President regarding COVID-19 testing, he elected to proceed,” Trump’s doctor, Sean Conley, wrote in the memo obtained by The Hill. “This evening I received confirmation that the test is negative. One week after having dinner with the Brazilian delegation in Mar-a-Lago, the President remains symptom-free. I have been in daily contact with the CDC and White House Coronavirus Task Force, and we are encouraging the implementation of all their best practices for exposure reduction and transmission mitigation.”
After declaring a national emergency over coronavirus Friday, Trump was asked if he would be tested for the disease. POTUS indicted a test was unnecessary, as he wasn’t exhibiting any symptoms: “We have a White House doctor — I should say many White House doctors… They said, ‘You don’t have any symptoms whatsoever.’ And we don’t want people without symptoms to go and do the test. The test is not insignificant.”
Less than 24 hours later, Trump told reporters he had taken the test Friday night: “I decided I should, based on the press conference yesterday,” he said in the White House briefing room Saturday. “People were asking, ‘Did I take the test?'”
