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 "We will begin our quarantine and recovery process immediately. We
will get through this TOGETHER!" the president said in a tweet early
on Friday morning.
Trump, 74, is at high risk with the deadly virus both because of his
age and because he is considered overweight. He has remained in good
health during his time in office but is not known to exercise
regularly or to follow a healthy diet.
Trump understated the seriousness of the coronavirus outbreak in its
early stages and has repeatedly predicted it would go away. On
Thursday night he said the end of the pandemic was in sight. He
rarely wears a mask and criticizes people, including Democratic
presidential nominee Joe Biden, who do.
More than 200,000 people have died from COVID-19, the disease caused
by the virus, in the United States alone. The elderly and those with
pre-existing conditions have been especially hard hit.
Trump, a Republican, urged U.S. states to re-open shuttered
economies even as the number of cases continued to soar and knocked
Democratic governors for putting tough measures into place to bring
the virus under control.
His health scare, which rattled financial markets, shifts the 2020
presidential campaign dramatically.
With only weeks before the Nov. 3 election, Trump will now be
sidelined from doing in-person events after holding a slew of
rallies with thousands of people at indoor and outdoor venues,
against the advice of public health professionals.
Biden leads Trump in national polls.
Trump's positive test also means that others at the highest levels
of the U.S. government have been exposed and may have to quarantine,
too.
A White House official said early on Friday that contact tracing was
under way.
Trump's physician, Sean Conley, said he expected the president to
carry out his duties "without disruption" while he recovers.
"The President and First Lady are both well at this time, and they
plan to remain at home within the White House during their
convalescence," Conley wrote in a memo that was distributed to the
press.
Leaders around the world wished Trump a speedy recovery.
Biden has criticized Trump sharply for his response to the pandemic;
the president has praised himself and his team.
On Thursday night, shortly after Trump predicted the pandemic's end
was in sight, news broke that Hope Hicks, a top adviser and trusted
aide, had tested positive for the virus. Hicks traveled with the
president on Air Force One on Tuesday and Wednesday.
CHANGE IN THE RACE
The White House issued a new schedule for Trump's activities on
Friday that did not include a planned trip to Florida. Biden plans
to campaign in Michigan on Friday. Both states are swing states that
could help decide the U.S. election.
The president's condition is likely to bring the pandemic back to
center stage in the race, after the death of Supreme Court Justice
Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Trump's subsequent nomination of Judge Amy
Coney Barrett to fill her seat shifted the campaign's focus.
Trump, who has been criticized for questioning the efficacy of
wearing a face covering, produced a mask from his pocket in his
first debate against Biden on Tuesday and said, "I wear masks when
needed. When needed, I wear masks."
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He then ridiculed the former vice president for putting one on regularly: "I
don't wear masks like him. Every time you see him, he's got a mask. He could be
speaking 200 feet away from them and he shows up with the biggest mask I've ever
seen," Trump said.
Health professionals say that face coverings are key to preventing the virus
from spreading.
The White House has had previous coronavirus scares. Vice President Mike Pence's
spokeswoman, Katie Miller, tested positive earlier this year and suffered
symptoms before recovering. A military valet also came down with the virus.
But the White House lowered its precautions as Trump sought to project a
return-to-normalcy message this summer. Temperature checks of everyone entering
the White House complex stopped, and while coronavirus tests continued for
people who came into close proximity to Trump, including some reporters, others
on campus are not tested.
Trump held a large campaign rally with thousands of people in Tulsa, Oklahoma in
June. Cases spiked in the area afterwards, and Herman Cain, a prominent
businessman and Trump supporter who attended the event, later fell ill with
COVID-19 and died.
Trump restarted large rallies later in the summer, seeking to drum up enthusiasm
for his candidacy against Biden, who has eschewed campaign events with large
numbers of people.
Trump takes pride in the big events with crowds of people who do not wear masks
or maintain social distance and is likely to chafe at having to remain home with
only weeks to go before the election.
Futures for the S&P 500 fell 1.8% in Asian trading after the news of Trump's
positive test, extending earlier losses, while barometers of risk sentiment,
such as the Australian dollar and Treasury yields, dipped.
"Trump has been trailing behind Biden and he has clearly failed to narrow the
gap after the first debate ... I suspect markets will lean towards the view that
Biden will likely win the election," said Naoya Oshikubo, senior economist at
Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Asset Management. "What I am worried is that he will
become even more aggressive against China after he caught the virus himself."
Trump joins a roster of other world leaders who have contracted the virus.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson kept working in isolation for a little over
a week after testing positive in late March, but then fell gravely ill and was
rushed into intensive care. He spent several weeks recovering before returning
to work.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau went into quarantine in March after his
wife was diagnosed with the coronavirus. Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro
called it a "little flu" after being infected in July.
(Reporting by Jeff Mason; Additional reporting by Hideyuki Sano and Aishwarya
Nair; Writing by Jeff Mason; Editing by William Mallard, Michael Perry and Peter
Graff)
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