Donald Trump and Melania test POSITIVE for COVID
Donald Trump and Melania test POSITIVE for COVID as they go into quarantine following news that Hope Hicks contracted the virus after traveling with the president on Air Force One
- The president tweeted to confirm the news shortly before 1am EST Friday, writing: ‘Tonight, @FLOTUS and I tested positive for COVID-19. We will begin our quarantine and recovery process immediately’
- Trump had said he and first lady Melania Trump were tested after president’s aide Hope Hicks tested positive
- Hicks, who serves as counselor to Trump, traveled with him to a rally in Minnesota on Wednesday
- She tested positive Thursday, according to an administration official after feeling poorly on the way home
- Trump then continued with his schedule Thursday and traveled to and from his Bedminster, New Jersey
- Hicks also had also been aboard Air Force One to Tuesday night’s first presidential debate in Cleveland
- And she traveled with the president to a rally in Pennsylvania last Saturday where she was seen maskless
- Trump is 74 years old, putting him at higher risk of serious complications from the virus
- A statement from the White House doctor said both the president and first lady are ‘well at this time’
- The White House had earlier distributed a schedule for Friday that showed he planned to go forward with a fundraiser at his Washington, D.C., hotel and a political rally in Sanford, Florida; that has since been canceled
The president tweeted to confirm the news shortly before 1am EST Friday
President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump tested positive for coronavirus Thursday evening.
The president tweeted to confirm the news shortly before 1am EST Friday, writing: ‘Tonight, @FLOTUS and I tested positive for COVID-19. We will begin our quarantine and recovery process immediately. We will get through this TOGETHER!’
Melania also tweeted to confirm the news
Trump is 74 years old, putting him at higher risk of serious complications from the virus. A statement from the White House doctor said both the president and first lady are ‘well at this time’ but did not say if either have symptoms.
If Trump becomes seriously ill, there are constitutional procedures that would allow Vice President Mike Pence to assume power temporarily, just weeks before the November 3 election.
But if Trump suffers mild or no symptoms, the president would be able to tout his recovery as evidence that the virus is a less grave threat than many believe.
It comes following news that the president’s top aide Hope Hicks contracted the virus after traveling with Trump on Air Force One and Marine One multiple times over the last week.
Hicks is said to have first felt unwell returning from a rally in Minnesota on the president’s plane Wednesday evening. She was quarantined away from others on the plane and her diagnosis was confirmed Thursday, according to an administration official, who spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
Trump then continued with his schedule Thursday and traveled to and from his Bedminster, New Jersey golf resort to take part in two campaign events. He flew back to the White House on Thursday evening, when it was publicly confirmed Hicks had the virus.
His social media director Dan Scavino and press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, who were originally set to join him on the Thursday trip, were replaced at the last minute by other aides after coming into contact with Hicks.
First lady Melania tweeted: ‘As too many Americans have done this year, @potus & I are quarantining at home after testing positive for COVID-19. We are feeling good & I have postponed all upcoming engagements. Please be sure you are staying safe & we will all get through this together.’
Trump was last seen by reporters returning to the White House on Thursday evening and looked to be in good health.
The White House had earlier distributed a schedule for Friday that showed he planned to go forward with a fundraiser at his Washington, D.C., hotel and a political rally in Sanford, Florida. That has since been canceled.
The second presidential debate on October 15 is also in doubt, while there is no word yet on whether Joe Biden is being tested or will have to isolate.
THURSDAY: Donald Trump gives a thumbs up as he walks from Marine One after arriving on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, DC, October 1, 2020, following campaign events in New Jersey hours before revealing he has COVID-19
TUESDAY: President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump wave before boarding Air Force One to travel to the first presidential debate in Cleveland. The president says he and first lady Melania Trump have tested positive for Covid-19
WEDNESDAY: Counselor to the President Hope Hicks, left, with White House senior adviser Jared Kushner, walk from Marine One to accompany President Donald Trump aboard Air Force One as he departs to a rally in Minnesota. It was on the way home from this trip that Hicks is said to have first shown symptoms of the virus
THURSDAY: President Donald Trump walks from Marine One to the White House in Washington, Thursday
Joe Biden, pictured on the campaign trail in his home state of Delaware on Thursday, spent Tuesday night in fairly close proximity to the president but there was no immediate word on whether he had been tested or was isolating
President Donald Trump had tweeted about beginning his ‘quarantine process’ Thursday evening after Hope Hicks tested positive for COVID-19
Markets reacted badly after Trump’s diagnosis today, with stock futures losing 1.9 per cent on the S&P 500, while oil prices also slipped.
Europe’s major stock markets also dived in opening trade on Friday, with London’s FTSE 100 and Frankfurt’s DAX 30 both shedding more than one per cent.
‘To say this potentially could be a big deal is an understatement,’ Holland’s Rabobank said in a commentary.
‘Anyway, everything now takes a backseat to the latest incredible twist in this US election campaign.’
Following the news White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany tweeted: The strength of the entire country is with President @realDonaldTrump and @FLOTUS. America stands united. Our country stands strong. Your President will continue to put the People first!’
Vice President Pence said: ‘Karen and I send our love and prayers to our dear friends President Donald Trump and [first lady] Melania Trump.
‘We join millions across America praying for their full and swift recovery. God bless you President Trump and our wonderful First Lady Melania.’
UK prime minister Boris Johnson, who survived a scare with the virus in April, sent his best wishes to the president and first lady on Twitter, saying: ‘Hope they both have a speedy recovery from coronavirus.’
Trump’s ally Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel, said that ‘like millions of Israelis, Sara and I are thinking of President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump and wish our friends a full and speedy recovery’.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyeusus, the head of the WHO who has clashed with Trump over the agency’s handling of the pandemic, also sent his best wishes to the president for a ‘full and speedy recovery’.
Trump has accused the WHO of being too close to China and announced earlier this year that the US would cut off funding for the Geneva-based body.
News of Trump’s infection has turned attention to Hope Hicks and her travel schedule after the White House aide first felt poorly on the way back from Tuesday’s debate.
Along with the trip to Wednesday night’s rally, Hicks had been aboard Air Force One to fly to Tuesday night’s first presidential debate in Cleveland.
She was spotted by DailyMail.com getting off Air Force One in the city without her mask.
Hicks also traveled with the president to a rally in Pennsylvania last Saturday where she was seen maskless and clapping to the Village People’s YMCA.
Trump had earlier tweeted to say he and Melania were in quarantine while they awaited their test results, writing: ‘Hope Hicks, who has been working so hard without even taking a small break, has just tested positive for Covid 19. Terrible!’.
Speaking to Fox News the president described the 31-year-old Hicks as a ‘very warm person’ and suggested she got close to supporters and contracted the virus.
‘She’s fantastic and she’s done a great job,’ Trump said.
‘But it’s very, very hard when you are with people from the military and from law enforcement and they come over to you and they, they want to hug you and they want to kiss you, because we really have done a good job for them.’
‘And you get close and things happen,’ the president added.
Trump also said he was ‘surprised’ to hear that Hicks, who previously served as White House communications director and re-joined the administration this year ahead of the election, tested positive.
‘She wears a mask a lot, but she tested positive,’ the president said.
Typically, according to the CDC, a person develops symptoms five days after being infected, but symptoms can appear as early as two days after infection or as late as 14 days after infection, and the time range can vary.
There was no immediate comment from Joe Biden’s campaign on whether the former vice president had been tested since appearing at Tuesday’s debate with Trump.
Biden, 77, stood some distance apart from the president but there were plenty of raised voices in the bad-tempered debate. The CDC warns that shouting can spread the disease.
All the attendees at the Cleveland debate were tested beforehand, while the former vice president’s wife Jill Biden kept her mask on throughout, unlike members of the Trump family.
The second debate on October 15 is now in jeopardy. Trump could be out of quarantine in 10 days if he shows no symptoms, but if he develops symptoms he would have to isolate for longer.
In addition, the October 7 vice-presidential debate between Mike Pence and Kamala Harris also appears in doubt, because Pence will have to isolate if he has been in contact with the president.
TUESDAY: Donald Trump Jr. and Kimberly Guilfoyle walk across the tarmac to board Air Force One at Andrews Air Force Base before flying to Cleveland for the first presidential debate Tuesday alongside Hicks
WEDNESDAY Hope Hicks, far right. is pictured walking to Marine One alongside Jared Kushner, center, to depart from the South Lawn of the White House in Washington DC on Wednesday
On Thursday evening, before Trump revealed he had tested positive, Biden berated the president for ‘doing everything he can to distract’ from his ‘failed Covid-19 response’.
In pre-taped remarks to the Al Smith charity dinner, Trump told guests on Thursday night that ‘the end of the pandemic is in sight’.
‘Through advances in treatment, we have reduced the fatality rate by 85 percent since just April. We are on track to develop and distribute a vaccine before the end of the year, and maybe substantially before,’ Trump claimed.
Biden has held a consistent lead in the polls, prompting Trump into an ever-more aggressive schedule of campaign rallies around the country.
Trump’s Florida trip is off today and he looks certain to have to cancel a trip scheduled for this weekend in Wisconsin, another battleground, where Biden has held a small but persistent lead.
Trump had also been expected to travel frequently next week, including longer distances to western states.
Hicks becomes the latest in Trump’s circle to contract the virus after National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien and White House coronavirus task force spokeswoman Katie Miller.
White House spokesman Judd Deere had earlier said: ‘The president takes the health and safety of himself and everyone who works in support of him and the American people very seriously.
‘White House Operations collaborates with the physician to the President and the White House Military Office to ensure all plans and procedures incorporate current CDC guidance and best practices for limiting Covid-19 exposure to the greatest extent possible, both on complex and when the president is traveling.’
Deere did not mention Hicks by name.
Hicks was also seen Tuesday in a car without her mask with White House senior adviser Stephen Miller and campaign adviser Jason Miller. She is said to have worn a mask when on Marine One with Trump.
She joined 20 to 30 aides and family members, including the president’s son Don. Jr, on board Air Force One Tuesday.
Her positive test was first reported by Bloomberg News.
Multiple White House staffers have tested positive for the virus, including Katie Miller, Vice President Mike Pence’s press secretary, national security adviser Robert O’Brien, and one of the president’s personal valets.
Kimberly Guilfoyle, who is dating Trump’s oldest son, Donald Trump Jr., tested positive in South Dakota before an Independence Day fireworks show at Mount Rushmore.
After earlier positive cases close to the president, the White House instituted a daily testing regimen for the president’s senior aides.
Others who will be in close proximity to the president and vice president, including reporters, are also tested every day.
While the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that people who have been in close contact with someone with COVID-19 quarantine for 14 days, White House staffers are considered essential workers.
CDC’s guidelines for exposed essential workers allows them to return to work if they take precautions, including taking their temperature before going into work, wearing a mask at all times and practicing social distancing.
Trump, the White House and his campaign have flouted other CDC guidelines and recommendations from public health officials, and largely refused to wear masks or practice social distancing.
WEDNESDAY: The crowd cheers as Air Force One arrives with President Donald Trump at Duluth International Airport on Wednesday. Hicks had joined the president on the trip and felt poorly on the way home, according to reports
WEDNESDAY: President Trump throws hats to supporters after speaking at a campaign rally at Duluth International Airport
SEPTEMBER 14: Hope Hicks sitting at close quarters with Donald Trump aboard Marine One, although wearing a mask
The virus has killed more than 200,000 Americans and infected more than 7 million nationwide.
The positive test is yet another reminder that the coronavirus continues to spread, even as Trump has tried desperately to suggest it no longer poses a danger.
Instead, Trump has continued to hold campaign rallies that draw thousands of supporters.
Still, Trump has consistently played down concerns about being personally vulnerable to contracting COVID-19. ‘I felt no vulnerability whatsoever,’ he told reporters back in May.
Hicks is one of the president’s most trusted and longest-serving aides, having worked as spokesperson for his 2016 campaign. She originally served as White House as communications director, and re-joined the administration this year as an adviser ahead of the election.
While there is currently no evidence that Trump is seriously ill, the positive test also raises questions about what would happen if he were to become incapacitated due to illness.
The Constitution’s 25th Amendment spells out the procedures under which a president can declare themselves ‘unable to discharge the powers and duties’ of the presidency.
If he were to make that call, Trump would transmit a written note to the Senate president pro tempore, Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. Pence would serve as acting president until Trump transmitted ‘a written declaration to the contrary.’
This has happened occasionally, with Ronald Reagan briefly putting George H.W. Bush in charge during surgery in 1985, before George W. Bush temporarily transferred powers to Dick Cheney during colonoscopies in 2002 and 2007.
These were all brief, scheduled transfers of power and came nowhere near a re-election campaign.
There is also a second, never-used option: the vice president and a majority of either the Cabinet or another body established by law, can declare the president unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, in which case Pence would ‘immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President’ until Trump could provide a written declaration to the contrary.
Trump’s infection has also led to suggestions that the election could be delayed, but there is no precedent for this.
While the Constitution does not specify an election date, moving the poll would require an act of Congress including support from the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives.
And regardless of the election date, Trump’s term ends on January 20.
Trump joins UK prime minister Boris Johnson and Brazil’s president Jair Bolsonaro as the most high-profile leaders to contract the disease.
Johnson, who was 55 at the time, spent an alarming three nights in intensive care at a London hospital before eventually recovering, while 65-year-old Bolsonaro rode out the infection at home.
When Johnson was ill, UK foreign secretary Dominic Raab deputised for him although the nature of his constitutional powers was not fully clear.
The White House offered to supply medicine for Johnson’s treatment, as did the Chinese government, but London said the PM was receiving the best possible care from Britain’s National Health Service.
Johnson has blamed his experience on being overweight, and his scare has prompted him to launch a crackdown on unhealthy eating.
Bolsonaro, a former army captain who has described the virus as a ‘little flu’, had long played down the risks and predicted that he would easily survive an infection with Covid-19.
Germany’s Angela Merkel, 66, self-isolated after a doctor who gave her a jab tested positive, and Canada’s Justin Trudeau, 48, worked from home after his wife fell ill.
How 74-year-old Trump’s risk of hospitalization is five times greater than someone who contracts COVID in their 20s and he has a 90 times greater risk of death, according to CDC
At 74 years old, the president is five times more likely to be hospitalized from the virus and 90 times more likely to die than a patient in their 20s, CDC figures show.
Trump and his wife Melania confirmed they had both tested positive for coronavirus early Friday, just hours after top White House aide Hope Hicks was confirmed to have contracted the virus.
Trump and Hicks traveled together on Air Force One multiple times over the last week, including to attend the shambolic opening presidential debate against Joe Biden on Tuesday night.
But while Hicks at 31 years old is considered a low risk patient, at 74 years of age, Trump faces a much higher chance of being hospitalized with the virus, and falling victim to its harshest symptoms.
According to CDC statistics, patients between the ages of 65 and 74 are five times more likely to be hospitalized with COVID-19 than someone aged 18 to 29.
Patients of Trump’s age also have a 90 times greater risk of death in comparison to their younger counterparts.
At 74 years of age, Trump faces a much higher chance of being hospitalized with the virus, and falling victim to its harshest symptoms.
According to CDC statistics, patients between the ages of 65 and 74 are five times more likely to be hospitalized with COVID-19 than someone aged 18 to 29. Patients in the elder category are also 90 times more likely to die in comparison to their younger counterparts
For every 1,000 people in their mid-seventies or older who are infected by COVID-19, around 116 will die – a fatality rate of 8.6 percent.
Trends in coronavirus deaths have been clear since early in the pandemic, with studies determining that age is by far the strongest predictor of an infected person’s risk of dying.
Henrik Salje, an infectious-disease epidemiologist at the University of Cambridge, UK, said ‘age cannot explain everything’, as gender is also said to be a strong risk factor – with men twice as likely to die from the virus than women.
Salje’s conclusions are supported by figures from the World Health Organization which said 1.7 percent of women who catch the virus will die compared to 2.8 percent of men, even though neither sex is more likely to catch it.
Underlying health conditions and health issues, such as diabetes and obesity, also have a significant impact on how severe a case of COVID-19 might be.
The CDC warned earlier this year that anyone considered ‘severely obese’ may raise risk of a severe reaction to COVID-19.
Following his annual physical this year, Trump’s physician Dr. Sean Conley said Trump was 6 feet, 3 inches tall and 244 pounds.
Trump, who was 73 at the time, had gained one pound since his last examination in 2019. It also showed the president’s cholesterol level had slightly improved to 167 from 196 the year before.
Officially, Trump’s height and weight would equate to a body mass index (BMI) of 30.4 – a fraction over the 30.0 level to be considered obese in the lowest of three tiers.
His previous doctor, Ronny Jackson, said in 2018 that Trump’s ‘overall health is excellent [but] … he would benefit from a diet that is lower in fat and carbohydrates and from a routine exercise regiment.’
TUESDAY: She was spotted getting off Air Force One in Cleveland on Tuesday without her mask ahead of the first presidential debate in the city
SATURDAY: From left, White House director of social media Dan Scavino, Counselor to the President Hope Hicks, special assistant to the President and White House trip director William Russell, and director of the White House personnel John McEntee listen as President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at Harrisburg International Airport, Saturday
