US President Donald Trump has tested negative for COVID-19, according to his doctor Sean Conley.
“Last night after an in-depth discussion with the presidentabout Covid-19 testing he elected to proceed,” Conley said in a memorandumreleased through Trump’s Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham on Saturday evening.
“This evening I received confirmation that the test isnegative.” Trump said earlier in the day at a White House news conference thathe had taken the test “only because the press is going crazy” while his doctordid not consider it necessary and he did not want to jump the queue whilepeople were waiting for it.
He said, “I decided I should, based on the press conferenceyesterday. People were asking, ‘Did I take the test?’”
He had been criticised by the media for not having taken thetest even though he had been exposed to a person who came down with thedisease.
One reporter went to the extent of asking him on Friday ifhe was being “selfish” by not getting tested.
Following the outcry over possible exposures, the WhiteHouse introduced temperature screening on Saturday for people who may come incontact with Trump or Vice President Mike Pence. Among the first reported to beaffected by it was a journalist who was running a temperature and was barredfrom the news conference.
Trump said that his temperature was also checked before heentered the briefing room. Vice President Mike Pence and other officialsconfirmed that their temperatures were also tested before they came in.
A White House spokesperson, Judd Deere, said that “out of anabundance of caution” temperatures were being checked for anyone who could bein close proximity to Trump or Pence.
Vice President Mike Pence’s Spokesperson Katie Millertweeted that the journalist who was turned away was checked three times andregistered above the 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Centigrade) limit setby the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines.
The journalist was not identified. Another journalisttweeting as the CNN White House Team claimed the person turned away had only atemperature of 99.9 degrees Fahrenheit (37.7 degrees centigrade).
The CNN tweet said, “He was trying to get access to thebriefing and was turned away and is being held by the press office on the WhiteHouse driveway.”
Pence, who is heading the Coronavirus Task Force, said thathe and his wife would be “more than happy to be tested.” The controversy overTrump’s testing arose over him posing at a dinner for a picture at theMar-a-Lago resort over the last weekend with Fabio Wajngarten, thecommunications chief of visiting Brazilian President JairBolsonaro.
Wajngarten was later found to be infected with Covid-19.Bolsonaro shot down rumours that he was also infected with the virus, tweetingthat a test had cleared him.
“One week after having dinner with the Brazilian delegationin Mar-a-Lago, the President remains symptom-free,” Conley’s memo said onSaturday.
In a memo on Friday night, Conley had said that Trump didnot need a test or a quarantine because his interactions with infected personswere considered low-risk under the guidelines of the CDC.
Referring to the Brazilian official, Conley said it was onlya brief contact e “photograph, handshake.”Conley said that they had learned on Fridayevening that another person who had shared the dinner table with Trump and theWhite House delegation had shown symptoms of COVID-19, but only on Fridaymorning.