TAMPA (WFLA) – Just a week after his release from the hospital, President Donald Trump returned to the campaign trail Monday for the first time since contracting the coronavirus, resuming his effort to stage a late comeback in the election’s final stretch.
“It’s great to be back in my home state, Florida, to make my official return to the campaign trail,” Trump declared in front of a crowd of thousands of supporters, standing shoulder-to-shoulder, mostly without masks, despite the ongoing pandemic.
Trump said that, after being given experimental medication and other VIP treatment, he’s feeling great and glad he no longer needs to be concerned about infection because he’s now “immune.”
“I feel so powerful,” said Trump, displaying no obvious signs of lingering infection. “I’ll walk into that audience. I’ll walk in there, I’ll kiss everyone in that audience. I’ll kiss the guys and the beautiful women … everybody. I’ll just give ya a big fat kiss.”
President Trump has tested negative for the coronavirus on consecutive days in a new announcement made by the president’s Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany.
“In response to your inquiry regarding the President’s most recent COVID-19 tests, I can share with you that he has tested NEGATIVE, on consecutive days, using the Abbott BinaxNOW antigen card,” Conley said in a statement.
Conley said the test was not used in isolation to determine President Trump’s current negative status.
“Repeatedly negative antigen tests, taken in context with additional clinical and laboratory data, including viral load, subgenomic RNA, and PCR cycle threshold measurement, as well as ongoing assessment of viral culture data, all indicate a lack of detectable viral replication,” Conley said.
The announcement on President Trump’s negative coronavirus tests comes just hours before his Florida rally is scheduled to begin in Sanford.
President Trump announced on Oct. 1 that he and the first lady had tested positive for COVID-19.
Trump was released from the hospital on Oct. 5.
Centers for Disease and Control guidelines say people should isolate for at least 10 days after symptoms first appear and after going 24 hours with no fever and without taking medicine.
