Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden acknowledged on Friday that he’s been tested for coronavirus.
“I have been tested once with a deep test and I’m going to continue to be testing on a regular basis,” Biden told reporters at a campaign event in his home state of Delaware.
For most of the summer, the former vice president’s campaign staff sidestepped questions over whether the 77-year-old Biden was being tested for COVID-19. After the coronavirus pandemic swept the nation in March, Biden waged a mostly virtual campaign as he’s worked nearly exclusively out of his home in Wilmington, Delaware.
But starting in late May, he’s held more than two dozen small scale campaign events, mostly in his home state or neighboring Pennsylvania. With the national party conventions over and the final general election stretch underway, Biden is increasing his travel to key battleground states across the country.
Taking questions for the second time this week, Biden offered that he’ll be regularly tested for COVID-19.
“They’re going to do it on regular basis, because everyone on my service detail and people in the house with me, they’re all tested, so I just, ‘yes, sir,’ show up and put my head back when they tell me,” he said.
Asked when the next exam will occur, the former vice president answered “I imagine it will be sometime this week I just don’t know. It will be a regular basis.”
Biden didn’t reveal the results of his test. Fox News reached out Biden’s campaign regarding the results, but did not immediately receive a response.
Biden regularly wears a mask when he holds a campaign event, taking it off only to speak when he’s socially distanced. President Trump for months refused to wear a mask in public, until relenting this summer. But the president — who’s been regularly tested for COVID-19 for months – continues to only wear one in public sparingly.
Public health experts for months have urged Americans to wear masks to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus. Nearly 190,000 people across the nation have died this year from coronavirus. And there are more than 6.1 million cases of COVID-19 in the U.S.
After months of resistance, the president this summer began urging Americans to wear masks. But at a rally Thursday night in the battleground state of Pennsylvania, Trump mocked Biden’s wearing of a mask.
“Did you ever see a man who likes a mask as much as him?” the president told supporters.
“He has it hanging down. Because it gives him a feeling of security. If I were a psychiatrist, right, you know I’d say: ‘This guy’s got some big issues. Hanging down. Hanging down,’” Trump added.
Asked on Friday to respond to the president’s criticism, Biden said “I’m a smart fellow. I listen to scientists. This is not a game. Life and death. Life and death.”
And spotlighting projections that at least another 100,000 people could die from the coronavirus by the end of the year, Biden – pointing to Trump’s mocking – stressed that “it’s hard to respond to something so idiotic.”
Biden has repeatedly criticized the president’s handling of the coronavirus outbreak and the subsequent economic downturn.
On Friday he stressed that “the president has botched the COVID response, botched it badly.”
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