(Headline USA) After months of enduring attacks from left-wing critics who claimed he had misled the public with an overly rosy picture of the coronavirus, President Donald Trump put his money where his mouth is.
Trump has advocated vociferously for schools to reopen, citing statistics that show little risk of children transmitting or suffering serious adverse consequences from the virus without underlying risk or vulnerability factors.
Supporting Trump’s assertions, while recounting her own experience after contracting the virus on Wednesday, First Lady Melania Trump said that the Trumps’ teenage son Barron had tested positive but showed no symptoms.
Barron tested positive for the coronavirus not long after his parents, she revealed in a lengthy note on the White House’s official website.
As for herself, the First Lady said she had been hit with a “roller coaster” of symptoms that she treated naturally with vitamins and healthy food.
Mrs. Trump said she is now negative and hopes to resume her duties soon.
Barron has since tested negative again, she said.
“Barron’s fine,” the president told reporters as he departed the White House for a campaign trip to Iowa.
Mrs. Trump shared that after she and her husband first received their positive results, “naturally, my mind went immediately to our son.” She said she was relieved when he tested negative at first, but kept thinking about what would happen in the days to come.
“My fear came true when he was tested again and it came up positive,” she wrote in a statement released to social media.
She said she was “glad the three of us went through this at the same time so we could take care of one another and spend time together.”
President Trump has called his bout with COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, a “ blessing in disguise.”
He was hospitalized for three days and treated with various therapies and drugs, including steroids, supplemental oxygen and an experimental antibody treatment, but he appeared to recover quickly and resume his rigorous work and campaign schedule.
Mrs. Trump did not explain why Barron’s positive diagnosis was not made public earlier, but she has fiercely protected the ninth-grader’s privacy.
As for her own trials with the disease, the first lady said she was “fortunate” to have had minimal symptoms, “though they hit me all at once and it seemed to be a roller coaster of symptoms in the days after.”
She described body aches, a cough and headaches and said she felt extremely tired most of the time.
To treat it, “I chose to go a more natural route in terms of medicine, opting more for vitamins and healthy food,” she said.
The first lady praised the care provided by Navy Cmdr. Sean Conley, the White House physician, and his team, and said it was an “unfamiliar feeling” to be the patient.
“It was me being taken care of now, and getting first-hand experience with all that COVID-19 can do,” she said.
Mrs. Trump acknowledged her family was “fortunate” to have received “the kind of care that we did.” She added, “If you are sick, or if you have a loved one who is sick — I am thinking of you and will be thinking of you every day.”
Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press
