White House physician says Trump has tested negative with COVID rapid test
12 October 2020
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."
Go deeper:GOP social-distances Trump
Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times
Section2Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.
Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.
The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.
- The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.
What the transcripts say:
- Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
- The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
- Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."
Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.