US President Donald Trump said late on Thursday that he and First Lady Melania Trump have tested positive for Covid-19 and have been quarantined after a top aide tested positive for coronavirus, in a shock development that disrupts his scheduled public appearances in the crucial final weeks of the election campaign.
Trump confirmed in an interview with Fox News that Hope Hicks, one of his closest confidantes, had tested positive and added later on Twitter that he and First Lady Melania Trump had got tested too.
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
Mr Hicks was traveling with Trump on Air Force One on September 29 to fly to Cleveland for the first Presidential debate with Democrat Joe Biden.
With only 32 days left for the US Presidential elections to kick off, two more presidential debates with Joe Biden are scheduled in the coming weeks apart from the campaigns.
Trump had consistently played down concerns about being personally vulnerable to contracting COVID-19. “I felt no vulnerablity whatsoever,” he told reporters back in May. The virus has killed more than 2,00,000 Americans and infected more than seven million worldwide.
