Donald Trump Is The Latest World Leader To Contract Covid-19 — Here Are The Rest

Published 3 years ago
GOP Presidential Candidate Donald Trump Takes Part In NBC Town Hall

President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump have tested positive for Covid-19, Trump announced in a tweet, joining a growing list of world leaders and officials to  have contracted the disease while fighting to contain its spread.

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1311892190680014849?s=20

KEY FACTS

Trump announced the positive test results on Twitter mere hours after close advisor Hope Hicks tested positive, while First Lady Melania Trump also tested positive for coronavirus; according to a statement from White House Physician Sean Conley, both are “well at this time, and they plan to remain home within the White House during their convalescence.” 

Trump joins a growing list of world leaders and officials to have tested positive for coronavirus. 

  • Brazil’s far-right President Jair Bolsonaro tested positive in July after months of downplaying the risks of the virus and dismissing it as “a little flu”; at the time of writing, Brazil’s coronavirus death toll of 144,000 is the second-highest in the world after the U.S. 
  • British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was one of the first world leaders to announce he had caught the virus in March and was eventually admitted to a hospital ICU after suffering persistent symptoms.
  • Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei tested positive for coronavirus in September after experiencing body aches and a dry cough; Reuters reports that Giammattei asked the entire cabinet to be tested, with the government later confirming that the minister for culture tested positive.
  • Bolivia’s interim President Jeanine Añez caught the virus in July.
  • After being diagnosed in June, Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández spent over two weeks in a hospital after developing pneumonia symptoms.  
  • Having dismissed coronavirus as a mass “psychosis”, Belarus’ Alexander Lukashenko claims he briefly caught the virus. 
  • The Armenian Prime Minister, Nikol Pashinyan, and his family tested positive and recovered from the virus in June.
  • In Guinea-Bissau, Prime Minister Nuno Gomes Nabiam and three ministers tested positive for Covid-19 in April.
  • In March, Prince Albert II of Monaco became the first reigning monarch or head of state to announce a positive test result for the disease. 
  • In April, Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin temporarily stepped down to recover from coronavirus.

-By Robert Hart, Forbes Staff