White House physician says Trump has tested negative with COVID rapid test

White House physician says Trump has tested negative with COVID rapid test

Photo: Samuel Corum/Getty Images

President Trump tested negative for COVID-19 with an Abbott BinaxNOW rapid antigen test "on consecutive days," according to a memo from White House physician Sean Conley shared by press secretary Kayleigh McEnany. Conley did not specify what days Trump tested negative.

The state of play: The memo comes days after Conley said Trump had met the "CDC criteria for the safe discontinuation of isolation" and "is no longer considered a transmission risk to others."

  • It also comes as the president has resumed holding public events, like a rally he held from the White House last Saturday and a campaign event he has planned in Florida on Monday.
  • Rapid tests like the one Conley said Trump has taken are less accurate in detecting the virus than the more sensitive PCR swab tests.

Worth noting: The White House has still not shared the timing of Trump's last negative test before his Oct. 2 announcement that he had contracted the virus, citing privacy reasons.

The bottom line: Conley wrote that the president's "repeatedly negative antigen tests," along with clinical and laboratory data, "have informed our medical team's assessment that the President is not infectious to others."

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