Twitter adds warning label to Trump's tweet claiming he is immune to covid-19

Washington, Oct 12: Twitter on Sunday added a warning label to a tweet by Donald Trump in which the US President claimed he was immune to the coronavirus, saying it violated the social media platform's rules about misleading information related to COVID-19.

"A total and complete sign off from White House Doctors yesterday. That means I can't get it (immune), and can't give it. Very nice to know," Trump said in the tweet.

The post was flagged by Twitter with a disclaimer saying, "This Tweet violated the Twitter Rules about spreading misleading and potentially harmful information related to COVID-19," Twitter's disclaimer read, adding that it had determined that it may be in the public's interest for the tweet to remain accessible.

"We placed a public interest notice on [President Trump's] Tweet for violating our Covid-19 Misleading Information Policy by making misleading health claims about Covid-19," a Twitter spokesperson said. "As is standard with this public interest notice, engagements with the Tweet will be significantly limited."

Trump said on Sunday he had fully recovered from COVID-19 and would not be a transmission risk to others, freeing him to return to holding big campaign rallies during the final weeks of the race for the White House.

The president first announced that he had had a positive coronavirus test on October 2. Trump's physician said on Saturday the president had taken a test showing he was no longer infectious.

The scientific evidence is unclear on how long people who have recovered from COVID-19 have antibodies and are protected from a second infection.

Trump, who is trailing Democrat Joe Biden in opinion polls ahead of the November 3 election, is eager to get back on the campaign trail after an absence of more than a week.

Notably, Trump posted the same message on his Facebook account, but the platform hasn't added a warning label despite the fact that it violates its rules. The post has been up for four hours and shared more than 24,000 times on Facebook.