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.