Dr. Birx:
Remarks by President Trump, Vice President Pence, and Members of the Coronavirus Task Force in Press Briefing | The White House
So if you have any respiratory symptoms, you want to protect yourself and treat yourself, but you also want to protect others. And so let’s everyone assume, when they have a respiratory illness, that you have a contagious illness because if it isn’t allergies, it’s contagious.
And let’s use those precautions across the board, and let’s — when you get a negative test, that means you’re negative that day. That doesn’t mean that you couldn’t get the virus spreading overnight, because it replicates in your nose and your nasal secretions, and you would have a positive test tomorrow.
So if you have a negative test, that doesn’t mean that you can discontinue precautions. It doesn’t mean you can start taking risks because you were negative. So let’s ensure that if you had symptoms, you are contagious; let’s treat yourself as being contagious. And if you have a negative test, let’s make sure that you’re still protecting others from whatever you do have and that doesn’t reassure you personally and you take additional risk.
