President is hospitalized with COVID-19

WASHINGTON – Stricken by COVID-19, a feverish and fatigued President Donald Trump was flown to a military hospital Friday night after being injected with an experimental drug combination in treatment at the White House.

In a day of whipsaw events, the president, who has spent months downplaying the threat, was forced to cancel all campaign events a month before the election as he fights a virus that has killed more than 207,000 Americans and is hitting others in his orbit as well.

The White House said Trump's expected stay of "a few days" at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center was precautionary and that he would continue to work from the hospital's presidential suite.

Trump, while still at the White House, received a single 8-gram dose of a polyclonal antibody combination drug while also taking zinc, vitamin D, melatonin, aspirin and famotidine, a heartburn medicine, according to White House physician Dr. Sean Conley.

Trump walked out of the White House on Friday evening wearing a mask and gave a thumbs-up but did not speak before boarding Marine One. Members of the air crew, Secret Service agents and White House staff wore face coverings to protect themselves from the president onboard the helicopter.

In a video taped before leaving for Walter Reed, Trump said, "I think I'm doing very well, but we're going to make sure that things work out." He remained fully the president, all authority intact.

Just a month before the election, Trump's revelation that he was positive for the virus came by tweet about 1 a.m. EDT Friday after he had returned from a Thursday fund­raiser. He had gone ahead to the event, saying nothing to the crowd though knowing he had been exposed to COVID-19, which has infected millions in America and killed more than 1 million worldwide.

Trump's diagnosis came during an already turbulent period in Washington and around the world, with the U.S. gripped in a heated presidential election amid the human and economic toll of the virus. Trump's immediate campaign events, including the rallies in Wisconsin, were all canceled, and his next debate with Democrat Joe Biden, scheduled for Oct. 15, is in question.

Trump has been trying all year — and as recently as Wednesday — to convince the American public that the worst of the pandemic is past, and he has consistently played down concerns about being personally vulnerable.

He has mostly refused to abide by basic public health guidelines — including those issued by his own administration — such as wearing face coverings in public and practicing social distancing. Until he tested positive, he continued to hold campaign rallies that drew thousands of often maskless supporters, sometimes in indoor venues.

"I felt no vulnerability whatsoever," he told reporters back in May. With the election coming up in about a month, he is urging states and cities to "reopen" and reduce or eliminate shutdown rules despite continuing virus outbreaks.

The White House tried to maintain an atmosphere of business-as-usual on Friday.

Late Friday, Trump's former adviser Kellyanne Conway tweeted that she had tested positive, and so did campaign manager Bill Stepien.

Other White House staffers have previously tested positive, including Pence's press secretary, Katie Miller, National Security Adviser Robert O'Brien and one of the president's personal valets. An RNC official confirmed Friday that Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel learned she had tested positive Wednesday. She has been at her home in Michigan since last Saturday and did not attend the debate.

The White House began instituting a daily testing regimen for Trump's senior aides after earlier positive cases close to the president.

In his memo, Conley said that Trump received a dose of an experimental antibody combination by Regeneron that is in clinical trials. Conley said Trump "remains fatigued but in good spirits" and that a team of experts was evaluating both the president and first lady in regard to next steps.

The first lady, 50, has a "mild cough and headache," Conley reported, and the remainder of the first family, including the Trumps' son Barron, who lives at the White House, tested negative.

Both Democratic presidential nominee Biden and his running mate Kamala Harris have tested negative, their campaign said. Vice President Mike Pence tested negative Friday morning and "remains in good health," his spokesman said.

Trump's Supreme Court nominee, Judge Amy Coney Barrett, who was with him and many others on Saturday and has been on Capitol Hill meeting with lawmakers, also tested negative, the White House said. It was confirmed that she had a mild case of COVID earlier this year and has now recovered.

At least two GOP lawmakers at the Saturday Rose Garden event announcing Barrett's nomination — Utah Sen. Mike Lee and North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis — announced Friday they had tested positive and were isolating.

Very early Friday, after returning from the New Jersey fundraiser, Trump stunningly tweeted, "Tonight, @FLOTUS and I tested positive for COVID-19. We will begin our quarantine and recovery process immediately. We will get through this TOGETHER!"

Hours earlier, the White House confirmed that a top aide who had traveled with him during the week had tested positive. White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows on Friday confirmed that the White House knew Hope Hicks, the aide, had tested positive before Trump attended the fundraiser.

Many White House and senior administration officials were undergoing tests Friday, but the full scale of the outbreak around the president may not be known for some time because it can take days for an infection to be detectable by a test. Officials with the White House Medical Unit were tracing the president's contacts.

Trump's handling of the pandemic has already been a major flash point in his race against Biden, who spent much of the summer off the campaign trail and at his home in Delaware citing concern about the virus. Biden has since resumed a more active campaign schedule, but with small, socially distanced crowds. He also regularly wears a mask in public, something Trump mocked him for at Tuesday night's debate.

In a tweet, Biden said he and his wife "send our thoughts to President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump for a swift recovery. We will continue to pray for the health and safety of the president and his family."

World leaders offered the president and first family their best wishes after their diagnosis, and governments used the case as a reminder for their citizens to wear masks and practice social distancing measures.

Next week, Vice President Mike Pence and Democratic vice-presidential nominee Kamala Harris will be placed 12 feet apart at their debate next week