President Donald Trump says his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani has tested positive for Covid-19.
The president wrote in a tweet: “Get better soon Rudy, we will carry on!”
Mr Giuliani, who has been leading the Trump campaign’s legal challenges to the 2020 election results, is the latest person in the president’s inner circle to be infected.
The president and his team have been criticised for shunning safety guidance. Mr Trump was ill in October.
Nearly 14.6 million people have been infected with Covid-19 in the US, according to Johns Hopkins University, and 281,234 people have died – the highest figures of any country in the world.
On Sunday, Dr Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus task force co-ordinator, criticised the Trump administration for flouting guidelines and peddling “myths” about the pandemic.
“I hear community members parroting back those situations, parroting back that masks don’t work, parroting back that we should work towards herd immunity,” Dr Birx told NBC.
“This is the worst event that this country will face,” she said.
Mr Giuliani, 76, has not commented publicly on his diagnosis.
It is not clear whether the former New York mayor is experiencing symptoms, whether he is self-isolating or when he caught the virus.
Since the 3 November election, Mr Giuliani has travelled the country as part of efforts to overturn Mr Trump’s election defeat. During many of his events, he was seen without a face mask and ignoring social distancing.
Last Thursday he travelled to Georgia where he repeated unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud at a Senate committee hearing about election security.
Dozens of people in Trump’s orbit are said to have tested positive for Covid-19 since October, including his chief of staff Mark Meadows and press secretary Kayleigh McEnany.
His wife Melania and sons Donald Jnr and Baron also contracted the virus.
Mr Trump’s own diagnosis upended his unsuccessful campaign for a second term in office, less than a month before he faced Joe Biden in the presidential election. (BBC)
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