Donald Trump Jr. tests positive for COVID-19

Donald Trump Jr., the president’s eldest son, tested positive for the coronavirus earlier this week, a spokesman confirmed to The Hill on Friday.

The spokesperson said in a statement that Trump Jr. tested positive “at the start of the week” and has been quarantining. He’s been asymptomatic since his diagnosis and is “following all medically recommended COVID-19 guidelines.”

Trump Jr. is just the latest person in the president’s orbit to be infected by the coronavirus. News of his diagnosis came hours after Andrew Giuliani, Rudy Giuliani’s son and a White House staffer, announced that he had tested positive for the virus.

The White House has already faced a number of outbreaks since the start of the pandemic, with the president, the first lady, the press secretary, the chiefs of staff to both the president and the vice president and senior advisers Stephen Miller and Hope Hicks, among others, contracting the virus at different times.

The newest diagnoses come amid an alarming national spike in cases. The number of new cases reported each day routinely surpasses 150,000, and the U.S. tallied 2,015 new coronavirus deaths Thursday, marking the first time the country has hit more than 2,000 daily deaths since May.

Experts have warned that the latest outbreak could be exacerbated during the coming winter months when social events move to indoor settings where the virus can be more easily spread.

Trump Jr., echoing language used by other allies of the president, has downplayed the extent of the coronavirus outbreak, saying late last month that deaths are “almost nothing.”

“We’ve gotten control of this, we understand how it works, they have the therapeutics to be able to deal with this,” he said on Fox News shortly before the election.

Trump Jr. was a regular figure on the campaign trail for Republicans this year. His girlfriend, Kimberly Guilfoyle, tested positive for COVID-19 in early July.