President Trump
said Saturday that he took the test for the coronavirus the previous
night and would have the results in a few days, saying he did so because
of questions from the media.
“I also took the test last night,” Trump told reporters
during a news conference in the White House briefing room. “I decided I
should based on the press conference yesterday. People were asking that I
take the test.”
Trump was referring to an appearance in the Rose Garden on Friday during which he was pressed
on why he hadn’t been tested or self-isolated after coming in contact
with a Brazilian official last weekend who later tested positive for
COVID-19.
A memo released by the White House physician
late Friday said Trump had come into contact with a second person at
his Mar-a-Lago beach resort in Palm Beach, Fla., last weekend who has
since tested positive for the virus.
However, the physician said Trump did not need to take the
coronavirus test. The physician described the president’s contact with
the individuals as low risk but noted he would continue to monitor
Trump.
“The President’s exposure to the first individual was
extremely limited (photograph, handshake), and though he spent more time
in close proximity to the second case, all interactions occurred before
any symptom onset,” Sean Conley, the physician to the president, wrote
in the memo. “These interactions would be categorized as LOW risk for
transmission per CDC guidelines, and as such, there is no indication for
home quarantine at this time.”
“Additionally, given the president himself remains without
symptoms, testing for COVID-19 is not currently indicated,” Conley
wrote.
Trump said Saturday he decided to take the test “only
because the press is going crazy.” The president said he didn’t know
precisely when he would have the results but that it would likely be a
day or two.
“I don’t know. Whatever it takes. A day or two days,” Trump said. “They send it to a lab.”
Trump also told reporters that his temperature had been
taken shortly before Saturday’s impromptu press briefing and that it was
“totally normal.”
Trump had been pressed at the news conference in the Rose
Garden hours earlier on apparent discrepancies between the
recommendations of the White House doctor and Dr. Anthony Fauci,
director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases,
who said during a television appearance that someone who is in contact
with a person infected with the coronavirus should get tested and
self-isolate.
Trump on Friday downplayed his interactions with a press
aide to Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who has tested positive for
the virus, and said he would likely be tested, though Trump insisted his
reason for doing so wouldn’t be because he made contact with the
Brazilian official.
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