President Trump says he has tested positive for COVID-19
President Donald Trump tweeted shortly before 1AM ET on Friday that he and his wife Melania have tested positive for COVID-19, following reports White House advisor Hope Hicks, who had traveled with him this week on Air Force One, had similarly tested positive.
Trump isn’t the first world leader to contract the coronavirus. Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro announced in July that he’d tested positive. UK prime minister Boris Johnson recovered from COVID-19 in April, and Honduras’ president Juan Orlando Hernández was discharged from a hospital in July.
Tonight, @FLOTUS and I tested positive for COVID-19. We will begin our quarantine and recovery process immediately. We will get through this TOGETHER!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 2, 2020
But as you’ve probably heard, it is the United States that has long become the nation struggling most with the pandemic, with the most cases and the most deaths, both of which far eclipse its percentage of the world’s population. Over 200,000 people have died of COVID-19 in the United States alone, nearly one-fifth of the 1 million people that have died worldwide.
Over the past months, Trump has famously and repeatedly insisted that the pandemic would magically “disappear,” or that the virus was largely harmless, or that it was “fading away,” among other claims.
In his recent debate against Joe Biden, he continued to downplay the need to wear a mask, stating that he puts on a mask “when I think I need it.” The CDC, among others, advises people to wear masks to prevent spreading COVID-19 to others — not necessarily to avoid contracting it yourself, and has advised even people without symptoms to get tested for COVID-19, because asymptomatic people can still contract and spread the virus.
The question now is whether Trump and his family contracting the virus will do anything to change their outlook and acceptance of the science around COVID-19, and whether the American people will change their behaviors now they’ve seen that Trump can get it too.
President Donald Trump tweeted shortly before 1AM ET on Friday that he and his wife Melania have tested positive for COVID-19, following reports White House advisor Hope Hicks, who had traveled with him this week on Air Force One, had similarly tested positive. Trump isn’t the first world leader to…
Recent Posts
- Google now offers ‘web’ search — and an AI opt-out button
- Ayn’s new gaming handheld looks like a PSP, and it might just fill the hole in your heart left by Sony’s best portable
- Google Search is getting a massive upgrade – including letting you search with video
- Google Project Astra hands-on: Full of potential, but it’s going to be a while
- OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever is officially leaving
Archives
- May 2024
- April 2024
- March 2024
- February 2024
- January 2024
- December 2023
- November 2023
- October 2023
- September 2023
- August 2023
- July 2023
- June 2023
- May 2023
- April 2023
- March 2023
- February 2023
- January 2023
- December 2022
- November 2022
- October 2022
- September 2022
- August 2022
- July 2022
- June 2022
- May 2022
- April 2022
- March 2022
- February 2022
- January 2022
- December 2021
- November 2021
- October 2021
- September 2021
- August 2021
- July 2021
- June 2021
- May 2021
- April 2021
- March 2021
- February 2021
- January 2021
- December 2020
- November 2020
- October 2020
- September 2020
- August 2020
- July 2020
- June 2020
- May 2020
- April 2020
- March 2020
- February 2020
- January 2020
- December 2019
- November 2019
- December 2011