White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany tests positive for coronavirus

(Image credit: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

published 5 October 2020

White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany has become the latest staffer to fall to the West Wing's coronavirus outbreak.

McEnany announced that, after testing negative for COVID-19 every day since Thursday, she tested positive Monday "while experiencing no symptoms." The White House medical unit determined she hadn't been in close contact with any "reporters, producers, or members of the press," though she did brief them outdoors without a mask on Sunday. McEnany went on to insist that she had no knowledge of White House adviser Hope Hicks' coronavirus diagnosis before it was reported Thursday.

Hicks' diagnosis was quickly followed by President Trump's early Friday. But when a handful of Republican senators who were hugging maskless at Amy Coney Barrett's nomination ceremony a week earlier tested positive, it raised suspicions that Trump had been infected for days before his positive test was made public. It can take days to produce a positive test after someone contracts the virus and becomes contagious.

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Kathryn is a graduate of Syracuse University, with degrees in magazine journalism and information technology, along with hours to earn another degree after working at SU's independent paper The Daily Orange. She's currently recovering from a horse addiction while living in New York City, and likes to share her extremely dry sense of humor on Twitter.

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