
U.S. President Donald Trump and his wife, Melania, have tested positive for COVID-19.
President Trump announced their diagnoses via Twitter on Friday, writing, "We will begin our quarantine and recovery process immediately. We will get through this together."
Trump is 74 years old, putting him at higher risk of serious complications from a virus that has now killed more than 200,000 people in the United States.
Tonight, @FLOTUS and I tested positive for COVID-19. We will begin our quarantine and recovery process immediately. We will get through this TOGETHER!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 2, 2020
Trump's positive test comes just hours after the White House announced that senior aide, Hope Hicks, came down with the virus.
Hicks travelled with the president multiple times this week, including aboard Marine One, the presidential helicopter, and on Air Force One to a rally in Minnesota Wednesday, and aboard Air Force One to Tuesday night's first presidential debate in Cleveland.
The diagnosis marks a major blow for a president who has been trying desperately to convince the American public that the worst of the pandemic is behind them even as cases continue to rise with less than four months before Election Day. And it stands as the most serious known public health scare encountered by any sitting American president in recent history.
Yet Trump had consistently played down concerns about being personally vulnerable to contracting COVID-19, even after White House staff and allies were exposed and sickened.
"I felt no vulnerability whatsoever," he told reporters back in May.
He has instead encouraged governors to reopen their states and tried to focus the nation's attention on efforts to revive the economy — not a growing death toll — as he seeks another four-year term.
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