The news site has retracted the story that said the vice president has tested positive for coronavirus, but many believe that it's true and the news will break anytime soon.

• Oct 9, 2020

AceShowbiz - Deadline got ahead of itself on a COVID-19 update from White House. The website accidentally posted an article about Mike Pence's alleged coronavirus diagnosis that was never supposed to be published on Thursday, October 8.

The said article, which came online just hours after Pence's Vice Presidential Debate with Kamala Harris, reported that the current vice president had tested positive for the virus, eight days after Trump confirmed his. "The two most powerful men in America now have coronavirus," the story claimed.

"Vice President Mike Pence announced late Wednesday that he is among those who have tested positive in the ongoing White House coronavirus outbreak," it continued. "Pence's diagnosis puts the number of of recently-infected people in Trump's circle at 21, according to the New York Times."

The story quickly circulated on social media, prompting Deadline to swiftly take it down and issue an apology. "Deadline Note To Readers," the site posted on its official Twitter page. "A draft post of a story about Vice President Mike Pence testing positive for coronavirus that was never meant to publish was accidentally posted on Deadline. Apologies to the Vice President and our readers."

Deadline published a longer statement on its site. "A draft post of a story about Vice President Mike Pence testing positive for coronavirus that was never meant to publish was accidently posted on Deadline. It was pulled down immediately," it read. "It never should have been posted and Deadline will take steps to see this kind of thing never happens again. Apologies to the Vice President and our readers. We regret the error."

While Deadline has retracted the story, many believe that it's true and the news will be officially announced anytime soon. " 'Never meant to publish' does not mean 'untrue,' " one person noted, demanding an explanation, "What the hell is going on, people." Another was convinced that Pence has the virus, tweeting, "He has it. He got it from Patient Zero Trump We could see it at the debate last night. His bleeding pink eye gave it away. I mean he wasn't even trying to hide it."

Some others, however, believe that Deadline prepared the story just in case he tested positive. "they pre-write these stories so they have it ready to go *IF* the news breaks. they probably wrote it up when Pence changed travel plans," one explained.

Another similarly said, "Almost definitely a write-in-case-it-happens. It's a very very very common practice at media companies. You pre-write it with whatever the angle is (this person died, got covid, this event was cancelled, etc) and then add a bunch of details about their life/accomplishments."

The accidental publishing of Pence's alleged COVID-19 diagnosis comes as the White House announced that President Donald Trump has been given a go by his physician, Dr. Sean Conley, to attend public engagements after his hospital release. In a statement, Conley determined that "based on the trajectory of advanced diagnostics the team has been conducting, I fully anticipate the President's safe return to public engagements."