White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said on Monday she tested positive for Covid-19, adding that she would begin quarantining and that the White House medical unit does not list any members of the press as close contacts.
“Moreover, I definitively had no knowledge of Hope Hicks’ diagnosis prior to holding a White House press briefing on Thursday,” Ms McEnany said in a statement, referring to President Donald Trump’s adviser whose positive test results were revealed last Thursday, hours before Mr Trump announced he and his wife also had contracted the coronavirus.
On Monday, Mr Trump began a fourth day at the military hospital where he is being treated for Covid-19.
The president’s team is treating Mr Trump (74), with a steroid, dexmethasone, that is normally used only in the most severe cases. Yet, his medical team told reporters on Sunday that Mr Trump could return to the White House as early as Monday.
Even if he does, he will need to continue treatment as the Republican president is still undergoing a five-day course of an intravenous antiviral drug, remdesivir. The normal quarantine period for anyone testing positive for the coronavirus is 14 days.
White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows on Monday reiterated the hope that Trump would be released shortly from the hospital.
“He will meet with his doctors and nurses this morning to make further assessments of his progress,” Mr Meadows told Fox News.
“We are still optimistic that he will be able to return to the White House later today.”
Sequestered at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center outside Washington since Friday, Mr Trump has released a series of videos in an effort to reassure the public that he is recovering from a disease caused by a novel coronavirus that has infected 7.4 million Americans and killed more than 209,000.
On Sunday, he also left his hospital room to ride in a White House motorcade that drove him past supporters gathered outside the hospital.
Dressed in a suit jacket, shirt but no tie and a black mask, it marked Mr Trump’s first in-person public appearance since Friday. Critics and medical experts criticised Mr Trump for the move, which potentially exposed the staff in his car to infection.
On Monday, his Twitter account released a stream of more than a dozen messages including “LAW & ORDER. VOTE!” and “RELIGIOUS LIBERTY. VOTE!”
Mr Trump spent much of the year downplaying the risks of the Covid-19 pandemic, which has infected 7.4 million Americans, killed more than 209,000, and caused an economic downturn that has thrown millions out of work.
Mr Trump is under fire for leaving the hospital on Sunday as well as for his statement that he met with soldiers and first responders at the hospital – moves that potentially exposed even more people to the virus.
“Every single person in the vehicle during that completely unnecessary presidential ‘drive-by’ just now has to be quarantined for 14 days,” James Phillips, who is also an assistant professor of emergency medicine at George Washington University’s medical school said on Twitter.
“They might get sick. They may die. For political theater.”
CNN quoted a White House official as saying that his wife, Melania, who also tested positive for Covid-19, is not considering leaving the White House.
“Melania Trump is aware of the dangers of Covid-19. Potentially exposing others is not a risk she would take,” the official said.
Health officials in New Jersey said they were trying to track down more than 200 people who attended a Trump fundraising event at his golf course there on Thursday.
Mr Trump travelled to the event after close adviser Hope Hicks had contracted the virus, and just hours before he announced that he had tested positive.
Ms McEnany said on Fox News that Mr Trump tested positive after that fundraiser, not beforehand. – Reuters
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