Rudy Giuliani hospitalised after testing positive for Covid-19

6 December 2020, 20:42 | Updated: 7 December 2020, 07:46

By Ewan Quayle

@EQjourno

Donald Trump's top lawyer has been hospitalised after testing positive for Covid-19.

Rudy Giuliani was checked in to Georgetown University Hospital on Sunday evening (UK time) after the US President confirmed his test result.

The senior lawyer has travelled extensively to battleground states in recent weeks in an effort to help Mr Trump challenge his election defeat.

Read more: Rudy Giuliani's leaky hair dye steals the show as he blames Venezuela for Biden win

Naming him the "greatest mayor in the history of NYC" on Twitter, the outgoing President wished Mr Giuliani a speedy recovery.

"Get better soon Rudy, we will carry on!!!" Mr Trump wrote in his tweet.

Mr Giuliani made an appearance earlier on Sunday on Fox News to speak about his legal challenges in several states on behalf of Mr Trump.

On Saturday it was confirmed that a bid to overturn the result in Georgia, which has been called for Joe Biden, had failed.

The diagnosis comes more than a month after Mr Trump lost his re-election bid and more than two months after Mr Trump was ill with the virus in early October.

Since then, a flurry of administration officials and others in Mr Trump's orbit have also tested positive, including White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and Ben Carson, the secretary of housing and urban development.

Last month, Mr Giuliani's son, Andrew Giuliani, a special assistant to Mr Trump, said he tested positive for coronavirus.

"I am experiencing mild symptoms, and am following all appropriate protocols, including being in quarantine and conducting contact tracing," the younger Giuliani said in a November 20 tweet disclosing his Covid-19 positive test.

The extraordinary spread among Mr Trump's associates underscores the cavalier approach the president has taken to a virus that has now killed more than 280,000 people in the US alone.

Those infected also include the vice president, his chief of staff, the White House press secretary, advisers Hope Hicks and Stephen Miller, as well as Mr Trump's campaign manager and the chair of the Republican National Committee.

The President spent the final days of his campaign trying to persuade the American public that the virus was receding, and repeatedly claimed it would miraculously "disappear" after November 3. Instead, the country is experiencing a record-breaking spike in infections.

White House coronavirus task force coordinator Dr Deborah Birx on Sunday offered tacit criticism of Mr Trump's attitude on the virus during an interview on NBC.

Asked about Mr Trump and other administration members flouting public health experts' warnings to avoid large gatherings and calls to wear masks, Dr Birx replied that some leaders are "parroting" myths and called the pandemic "the worst event that this country will face".

"And I think our job is to constantly say those are myths, they are wrong and you can see the evidence-base," she added.