The White House said it is now conducting temperature checks on anyone who is in close contact with Trump and Vice President Mike Pence. Photo / AP
The White House said it is now conducting temperature checks on anyone who is in close contact with Trump and Vice President Mike Pence. Photo / AP
US President Donald Trump says he took a coronavirus test on Friday night local time and had his temperature taken on Saturday.
At a press conference, Trump revealed he had taken the test and would get the results in a day or two.
Trump and Pence attended an afternoon news conference at the White House, and Trump said he had his own temperature taken before speaking to reporters.
"It was totally normal," Trump said. "If it wasn't, I wouldn't have been here."
Trump has had multiple direct and indirect contacts with people who have tested positive for the pandemic virus.
Few travellers are seen in a mostly empty flight check-in area at John F. Kennedy Airport's Terminal 1 on Friday in New York. Travel restrictions have been extended in the US. Photo / AP
Pence said the US is extending its Europe travel ban to cover the United Kingdom and Ireland so that residents of those countries will not be allowed to travel here for 30 days beginning midnight Monday eastern time. Those bans do not apply to Americans abroad.
"Americans in the UK or Ireland can come home. Legal residents can come home," Pence told a White House news conference, adding that such people would be "funnelled through specific airports and processed."
A 30-day US ban on travel from the EU's Schengen border-free zone took effect on Saturday local time, but notably excluded Britain and Ireland.
Trump had earlier confirmed the ban would be extended to those countries as the pandemic progresses, saying: "They've had a little bit of activity, unfortunately."
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Before Saturday's briefing, a member of the White House medical team took the temperature of all journalists wishing to attend.
One of them was excluded after a high reading.
While Trump had initially suggested he would get tested for coronavirus, the White House then said he would not.
It came as a third person who visited Mar-a-Lago with Trump last weekend has been confirmed to have the coronavirus with Brazil's Acting Ambassador Nestor Forster testing positive on Friday local time.
The president also came into contact with Brazilian Press Secretary Fabio Wajngarten on Saturday who tested positive and he attended a dinner on Sunday after which one of the attendees was also diagnosed. It's not clear who that attendee is.
