Trump's White House chief of staff tests positive for coronavirus

White House chief of staff Mark Meadows has tested positive for Covid-19, becoming the latest Trump administration official to contract the disease, which has killed over 236,000 Americans.

It was not immediately clear how 61-year-old Meadows - who has often appeared at public events without a face mask - was infected.

A White House official told Fox News that Meadows was doing well.

Meadows' positive test comes weeks after President Trump and first lady Melania Trump contracted the novel coronavirus and recovered.

On Friday, the US set a third straight daily record for new cases, with more than 127,000 infections.

The country's raging coronavirus outbreak was a key policy issue in the run-up to the November 3 presidential election, and contributed to a surge in postal and early in-person voting.

In late October, Meadows said in an interview with CNN that the US was "not going to control the pandemic", saying that COVID-19 could only be defeated by "mitigation areas" like vaccines and therapeutics.

Meadows travelled with Trump on the final days of campaigning and was at an election night party attended by dozens of Trump supporters at the White House.

A number of White House officials tested positive for coronavirus last month following a Rose Garden event in late September to formally nominate Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court.

Those officials included White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, senior adviser Hope Hicks and director of Oval Office operations Nick Luna.