Hours before President Donald Trump’s first trip since being hospitalized for COVID-19, the White House says he has tested negative for the virus and is not contagious.
In a memo on Monday afternoon, Dr. Sean Conley wrote, “I can share with you that he has tested negative, on consecutive days, using the Abbot BinaxNOW antigen card.”
“This comprehensive data, in concert with the CDC’s guidelines for removal of transmission-based precautions, have informed our medical team’s assessment that the president is not infectious to others,” Conley added.
Read the memo below:
https://twitter.com/Breaking911/status/1315766593411051521
The president announced he tested positive for the coronavirus on Oct.2 and was taken to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for the weekend. However, by the end of the week, he was back in the White House and working in the Oval Office, as IJR reported.
On Saturday, Conley said Trump took a test that showed he was not a “transmission risk to others.” Earlier in the day, the president held his first in-person event at the White House since he tested positive for the virus. However, at the time, it was not clear if Trump had tested negative for COVID-19.
Former Food and Drug Administration Commission Scott Gottlieb said on Sunday that Trump was “probably not” contagious. However, he added that the president may not test negative for the virus for a “period of time.”
He explained, “We know that people continue to shed virus for a long period of time. But that’s dead virus. It’s a virus that doesn’t grow in a culture, can’t really pass on the infection.”
Trump is scheduled to hold a rally in Sanford, Florida, at 7 p.m. on Monday and is planning an aggressive campaign schedule after he was temporarily sidelined. He reportedly plans to hold at least one campaign event every day through the election.