As of Friday afternoon, members of the Trump administration say they don’t have coronavirus, but given their relative proximity to CPAC attendees and Brazilian officials who tested positive, people are concerned.

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People were even more concerned to see that at a press conference Friday, U.S. officials opted not to implement recommended best practices to prevent the spread of coronavirus.

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President Donald Trump, Vice President Mike Pence, tech and retail leaders shook hands, patted each other, and touched the podium one after another.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the World Health Organization, and other health organizations, however, recommend people stand away from each other (social distancing), avoid handshakes, and clean surfaces the virus can live on.

It didn’t help that people online thought Trump sounded sick.

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https://twitter.com/stclairashley/status/1238551919188008960

Not watching the speech but I think Trump might be sick pic.twitter.com/Ma0kRBESPe — Harry Khachatrian (@Harry1T6) March 13, 2020

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Trump is sick as a dog. You can hear it. — David Waldman-1, of Yorktown LLC™ (@KagroX) March 13, 2020

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And people were losing it over the constant touching.

shaking hands….at the coronavirus press conference pic.twitter.com/VxFFqr564E — David Mack (@davidmackau) March 13, 2020

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Also weird that everyone is shaking hands, touching the microphone and podium — Grace Segers (@Grace_Segers) March 13, 2020

Watching everyone, including Anthony Fauci, touch the microphone and podium after Trump, who has come in contact with confirmed #Covid19 cases, is making me scream inside. — Julia Ioffe (@juliaioffe) March 13, 2020

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Trump is shaking the hands of CEOs coming up to the podium to talk about containing the Coronavirus. And they are all gripping the podium in the same place. We know Trump has been exposed. Has the President just required these leaders now be self-quarantined? — Robert P. Jones (@robertpjones) March 13, 2020

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Wish someone would also wipe down that podium mic before raising or lowering it https://t.co/sl2C33AGir — Andrea Mitchell (@mitchellreports) March 13, 2020

People at the podium may have eventually realized what they were doing. When Trump went for a last handshake, he instead got an elbow bump.

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It took 20 minutes for someone to realize how terrible the optics are to have Trump be shaking everyone’s hands pic.twitter.com/TScboS5Q8P — Michael Bodmer (@mbodmer) March 13, 2020

During the press conference, Trump announced a national state of emergency. He also called for a halt on interest to student loan payments held by the federal government and said that Google was helping to build a website where people could log their symptoms to see if they needed to get tested.

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Perhaps Trump and company should check it out.

When asked if he would take any precautionary measures, Trump said he would not and that he displayed no symptoms.

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