Donald Trump calls off trip to disease control agency over staffer’s ‘Covid-19’
The person has now tested negative but the president instead signed his new bill at the White House.
President Donald Trump’s visit to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta has been called off because of concerns that a staff member may have been infected by Covid-19.
Mr Trump told reporters that concerns were raised Thursday about “one person who was potentially infected” who worked at the CDC.
“Because of the one person they didn’t want me going,” he added, explaining why a planned stop at the agency, which is working with state and local officials to help combat the spread of the new virus, was left off his schedule.
He said he still hopes to visit the agency.
Covid-19 so far has killed 12 people in the US, most of them in Washington state.
Mr Trump had planned to sign an 8.3 billion US dollar coronavirus response funding bill at the CDC.
The White House said in a statement that Mr Trump would no longer visit the agency because he “does not want to interfere with the CDC’s mission to protect the health and welfare of their people and the agency”.
