Donald Trump Jr tests positive for coronavirus

Donald Trump Jr has tested positive for Covid-19, the latest in a string of infections to hit the president’s family and inner circle.

A spokesman said Trump Jr learned of his diagnosis earlier this week, has no symptoms, and has been quarantining.

Trump Jr, the president’s eldest son, is now the fourth member of the Trump family to have become infected with Covid. The president, the first lady and their son Barron have recovered from the virus.

Trump Jr, 42, had managed to evade infection after his girlfriend, Kimberly Guilfoyle, tested positive in July.

The White House has been the scene of several outbreaks in recent months, including one linked to an event held for Amy Coney Barrett and, more recently, a White House election night party with few masks and little social distancing, after which multiple attendees tested positive.

The coronavirus has now killed more than a quarter-million Americans. Trump Jr, like his father, has been criticized for downplaying the severity of the pandemic. In October, as fatalities in the US approached 1,000 a day amid a record surge of infections, Trump Jr told Fox News that critics of the Trump administration’s approach to the pandemic are “truly morons” and said that Covid-19 deaths in America right now are “almost nothing”.