Donald Trump has said his administration is encouraging Americans to wear face masks in public to prevent spreading the coronavirus – but does not intend to wear one himself, despite his own wife’s advice, EDNews reports citing The Guardian.

“The CDC is advising the use of non-medical cloth face covering as an additional voluntary public health measure,” the US president told reporters on Friday. “This is voluntary. I don’t think I’m going to be doing it.”

Yet later on Friday evening, first lady Melania Trump tweeted: “As the weekend approaches I ask that everyone take social distancing & wearing a mask/face covering seriously.”

At the daily White House coronavirus task force briefing, Trump was pressed to explain his unwillingness to lead by example and offered a characteristically unconventional reply. “I just don’t want to wear one myself. They say ‘recommendation’, they recommend it. I’m feeling good,” – a remark that ignored evidence that many virus carriers do not show symptoms.

He went on: “I just don’t want to be doing – somehow sitting in the Oval Office behind that beautiful Resolute Desk, the great Resolute Desk, I think wearing a face mask as I greet presidents, prime ministers, dictators, kings, queens, I don’t know, somehow I don’t see it for myself. Maybe I’ll change my mind, but this will pass, and hopefully it will pass very quickly.”