Washington, May 8 (IANS): US President Donald Trump on Thursday ordered daily coronavirus testing at the White House after it was reported that one of his personal aides has tested positive for the deadly disease.
While addressing the media during a White House meeting with Texas Governor Greg Abbott, Trump said that he had had "very little contact, personal contact, with this gentleman", who is the President's personal military valet, adding that he had just undergone two coronavirus tests, one on Wednesday and another on Thursday, and the results were negative, reports Efe news.
However, Trump said he had ordered that people working at the White House be tested for the virus daily instead of weekly.
"So we test once a week, now we're going to go testing once a day," he said.
"But even when you test once a day, somebody could catch something."
Addressing Abbott as they chatted before reporters, Trump said: "I said yesterday, Governor, all people are warriors in this country. Right now we're all warriors."
On Thursday morning, the White House said in a statement that both Trump and Vice President Mike Pence had undergone virus tests after the valet had tested positive.
The personal valets are attached to the elite military units that serve at the White House and often work closely both with the president and the first lady, and thus concern has grown about whether Trump has been exposed to the sometimes deadly virus, which is still spreading rampantly in certain parts of the country.
This is not the first virus case to surface within the President's official residence with one of Pence's advisers testing positive for COVID-19 in March.
Although the rates of both new infections and deaths in New York state, the epicentre of the pandemic in the US, have been decelerating, the virus continues to spread throughout the rest of the country.
Concerned about the seriousness of the economic impact of the pandemic, Trump has been insisting on the need to resume business activities as soon as possible and has clashed on more than one occasion with medical experts who are recommending acting with greater prudence in confronting the huge public health crisis.
The US currently accounts for the highest number of coronavirus cases and deaths in the world.
As of Friday, there were 1,256,972 cases in the country, while the death toll stood at 75,670, according to the Johns Hopkins University.
