US President Donald Trump on Friday announced that he and his wife Melania have tested positive for the novel coronavirus.
"Tonight, @FLOTUS and I tested positive for Covid-19. We will begin our quarantine and recovery process immediately. We will get through this together," he said in a tweet.
Here’s looking back at some of Trump’s ‘COVIDIOT’ statements that created buzz amid the pandemic.
· “This is a flu. This is like a flu.” “Now, you treat this like a flu.” “It’s a little like the regular flu that we have flu shots for.”
· “We have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China.”
· “Anybody that needs a test, gets a test. They’re there. They have the tests. And the tests are beautiful.”
· “You can call it a germ, you can call it a flu, you can call it a virus, you know you can call it many different names. I’m not sure anybody even knows what it is.”
· “It’s not racist at all. No, not at all. It comes from China. That’s why. It comes from China. I want to be accurate.”
· "I just don’t want to wear (mask) one myself. They say ‘recommendation’, they recommend it. I’m feeling good."
. "No, I want people to have a certain freedom and I don't believe in that, no.” (Trump on making masks mandatory)
· “We’re going to put a hold on money spent to the (World Health Organization). We’re going to put a very powerful hold on it.”
· “I’ve always known this is a real – this is a pandemic. I felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic. I’ve always viewed it as very serious.”
· “And then I see the disinfectant where it knocks it out in a minute. One minute! And is there a way we can do something, by an injection inside or almost a cleaning? Because you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs, so it’d be interesting to check that.”
· "I tested very positively, in another sense, this morning. I tested positively toward negative, right? No, I tested perfectly this morning -- meaning I tested negative. But that's a way of saying it: positively toward the negative.”
· Trump claimed that the "United States is lowest in numerous categories" basing his interpretation of deaths as a proportion of cases rather than as a proportion of population.
The next course of action for the President and the First Lady was not immediately clear as he has events scheduled for Friday in Florida and Saturday in Wisconsin.
The announcement came after White House adviser Hope Hicks, one of Trump's closest aide, was confirmed to have tested positive for the virus on Thursday.
She had travelled with the President on Air Force One earlier this week, an informed source told The Hill news website.
After the revelation, Trump had tweeted: "Hope Hicks, who has been working so hard without even taking a small break, has just tested positive for Covid 19. Terrible.
"The First Lady and I are waiting for our test results. In the meantime, we will begin our quarantine process."
Also, in a statement, a White House official said contact tracing has been done, "and the appropriate notifications and recommendations have been made", The Hill news website reported.
Hicks is the latest White House aide to test positive for the virus which has so far infected 7,277,352 people in the US and killed 207,791 others, making it the worst-hit country in the world.
National Security Adviser Robert O'Brien had tested positive, as well as a White House valet who serves the President.
Katie Miller, the Vice President's communications director and the wife of Trump senior adviser Stephen Miller, were also infected.
