Trump extends best wishes to Harris as 2 of her staffers test positive for COVID-19

GREENVILLE: US President Donald Trump has extended his best wishes to Democratic vice-presidential nominee Kamala Harris as two of her staffers tested positive for COVID-19, following which she suspended her campaign travel.

Harris was scheduled to campaign in the battleground state of North Carolina on Thursday.

Addressing his supporters at an election rally in North Carolina's Greenville city on Thursday, Trump said he has extended his best wishes to Harris.


"We extend our best wishes. We extend our best wishes, more than they did to me but that's Ok," he said.

Trump, 74, has recovered from a brief spell of COVID-19 after he and First Lady Melania Trump, 50, tested positive for the deadly viral infection on October 1. Trump's doctors have now cleared him for his election campaigns.

“I'm very concerned about (Harris) because as you probably just heard...two of the people that travel with her Chief of Staff and somebody else in the plane with her all the time, they have been tested positive for COVID-19,” Trump said.

"Let's see what happens. I mean it's a tricky thing, it's dust. It's a little tricky. Masks, no masks you can do what you want, but you know, you still need help from the boss. You need help from the boss. That's what happens. We need help,” the president said, speaking without a mask at the crowded outdoor rally.

Joe Biden's presidential campaign on Thursday announced that Harris' communications director Liz Allen tested positive for COVID-19 on Wednesday, as did a flight crew member who was on the campaign trip to the southwest.

Campaign manager Jen O'Malley Dillon said US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines do not require Biden and Harris to quarantine. However, Harris would suspend travel for several days “out of an abundance of caution”.

"Senator Harris was not in close contact, as defined by the CDC, with either of these individuals during the two days prior to their positive tests; as such, there is no requirement for quarantine,” Dillon said in a statement.

Neither of the individuals who tested positive had contact with Harris or Biden or any other staffers since testing positive or in the 48 hours prior to their positive test results, she said. Biden had also tested negative.

During the rally, Trump said Harris will not be the first woman president of the United States.

“They (supporters of Hillary Clinton) talked about the glass ceiling right? The woman breaking the glass ceiling and it didn't work out that way. The glass ceiling broke her. But there will be a woman that breaks the glass ceiling it just won't be Hillary,” Trump said, referring to the 2016 election results.

“And you know who else it won't -- you know, who else it won't be? It won't be Kamala. It won't be Kamala,” the president said amidst huge applause from the audience.