Sarah Palin urges people to wear masks after revealing she had Covid

‘My case is perhaps one of those that proves anyone can catch this,’ says former vice presidential candidate

Sarah Palin has urged people to wear masks after revealing that she tested positive for the coronavirus.

The former Republican vice presidential nominee says she has suffered from sore muscles and lost her sense of taste and smell after getting Covid, according to People magazine.

Ms Palin, 57, who called the symptoms “bizarre”, said that she caught the virus along with her 12-year-old son Trig and admitted that it was evidence that “anyone can catch this.”

“As confident as I’d like to be about my own health, and despite my joking that I’m blessed to constantly breathe in the most sterile (frozen!) air, my case is perhaps one of those that proves anyone can catch this,” the mother-of-five said.

The former Governor of Alaska said that the alarm was raised after one of her daughters also lost her sense of smell and taste and tested positive for Covid.

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“I then observed symptoms in my son Trig, who curiously is the most enthusiastic mask-wearer, and after our numerous negative tests over the year, he tested positive,” she added.

“Children with special needs are vulnerable to COVID ramifications [Trig was born with Down syndrome], so with a high fever he was prescribed azithromycin, which really seemed to help, and I increased amounts of vitamins I put in his puréed food.”

Ms Palin said that she and her son “buckled down in isolated quarantine” and she “still tested negative.” 

But when he developed a slight fever and the other symptoms she realised it was “unmistakable Covid caught me.”

“That day I finally tested positive — like millions of other Americans,” she added.

Ms Palin encouraged people to continue to wear masks and to “use common sense.”

Many Republicans have pushed back at wearing masks throughout the pandemic, which has now killed more than 550,000 and seen more than 30 million contract the virus.

Donald Trump famously took off his mask upon returning to the White House after hospital treatment for the virus last year, and generally avoided being seen wearing one.

“There are more viruses than there are stars in the sky, meaning we’ll never avoid every source of illness or danger,” she said.

“Through it all, I view wearing that cumbersome mask indoors in a crowd as not only allowing the newfound luxury of being incognito, but trust it’s better than doing nothing to slow the spread.”