A close aide to Brazil’s president who attended a dinner with Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago over the weekend tested positive for coronavirus, local newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo reported.
Fabio Wajngarten, President Jair Bolsonaro’s communications secretary, will have his samples submitted for a second test for final confirmation, Estado reported without saying how it obtained the information. He was part of the presidential entourage during a trip to Florida earlier this week. Pictures posted on social media show him side-by-side with Trump, wearing a “Make Brazil Great Again” hat.
Bolsonaro canceled his official agenda on Thursday and remains at the presidential palace. He is under medical observation, according to two people close to him who requested anonymity because the information isn’t public.
Asked about the news, the U.S. president said he was “not concerned.”
“We did nothing very unusual, we sat next to each other for a period of time,” he told reporters at the White House.
Wajngarten and Bolsonaro’s office didn’t immediately reply to requests for comment.
Three other high-ranking authorities accompanied Bolsonaro during his dinner with Trump: Defense Minister Fernando Azevedo; Foreign Affairs Minister Ernesto Araujo, and Institutional Security Minister Augusto Heleno.
(Reported by Bloomberg)
