Brazilian President denies testing positive for coronavirus

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro on Friday denied having tested positive for coronavirus, after local media reported he had tested positive for COVID-19 and was awaiting the results of a second test to confirm.

“The Armed Forces Hospital and (diagnostic laboratory) Sabin have returned a negative test result for COVID-19 for the President of the Republic Jair Bolsonaro,” said a post on the Bolsonaro’s Facebook page, according to AFP.

It was accompanied by a picture of Bolsonaro flashing an obscene arm gesture at the press.

“Don’t believe in the fake news media!” said a second message.

Bolsonaro’s son, Eduardo, similarly denied in an interview on Fox News that his father had tested positive for the virus.

Host Sandra Smith asked Bolsonaro if he could confirm his father had first tested positive for the virus and what had happened in between then.

“I don’t have this information,” he replied. “The information I have is the results that just came up telling that he is negative for coronavirus. I never listened that it was positive in the first exam. This is something that I don’t know. But, uh, everything’s good now.”

Bolsonaro then told Smith, to his knowledge, this was his first test for the virus.

He denied his father was showing any symptoms, saying, “He is okay.”

Bolsonaro was left in a delicate position on Thursday after it emerged that his communications chief, Fabio Wajngarten, had tested positive for COVID-19.

The test result came after a trip to the United States, during which both Bolsonaro and Wajngarten met with President Donald Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and a slate of top US officials.

Wearing a face mask, Bolsonaro said in a video address Thursday night that he would know “in the next few hours” whether he was infected with the virus.

(Arutz Sheva’s North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Arutz Sheva articles, however, is Israeli time.)