US President Donald Trump has taken centre stage again in Florida, declaring that he is in "great shape" with 22 days to go until he faces Joe Biden in the election.
"I went through it and now they say I'm immune," Mr Trump told a cheering crowd in Sanford, near Orlando, few of whom wore masks.
"I feel so powerful. I'll walk in there, I'll kiss everyone in that audience. I'll kiss the guys and the beautiful women, just give you a big fat kiss."
Mr Trump's medical team announced he had tested negative and was no longer contagious as he jetted to Florida - the first of four battleground states he plans to visit over the next four days.
His claim of immunity is unproven.
Trailing his Democratic challenger Joe Biden by double digits in the polls, Mr Trump is seeking to rally his base on a blitz of key swing states.
In rare form just a week after his release from hospital, Mr Trump's hour-long speech called on all of his campaign classics: vicious attacks against "crooked Hillary" Clinton and the "corrupt" press, alarmist warnings against the "radical left" and the "socialist nightmare".
Mr Trump also mocked his opponent, whom he has nicknamed "sleepy Joe," saying that "practically nobody showed up" to Mr Biden's campaign event.
Unlike Mr Trump, Mr Biden has been following public health guidelines during the pandemic, hosting socially-distanced campaign events that sharply contrast with Mr Trump's packed, largely maskless extravaganzas - including a recent celebration at the White House described by health experts as a "superspreader" event.
Florida could play crucial role in election
"Oh, do I like Florida," Mr Trump told the crowd. The state could play a crucial role on 3 November.
The president brushed aside poll numbers, saying: "Four years ago we had the same thing. We are going to lose Florida, they said four years ago.
"Twenty-two days from now, we are going to win this state, we are going to win four more years in the White House!" he added.
Before the president left for Florida, his physician Sean Conley said the 74-year-old was now negative and no longer "infectious to others" following consecutive rapid tests and taking into account a number of other health metrics.
Patients are normally classed as negative only after taking the more sensitive PCR test - drawing suspicion from experts on social media that Mr Trump's doctors had administered these but had not received the results they were looking for.
The president is also to visit Pennsylvania, Iowa and North Carolina this week as part of a push to make up ground on Joe Biden.
Mr Trump won Florida, Pennsylvania, Iowa and North Carolina - the four states he is visiting this week - in 2016 against Hillary Clinton but is trailing Mr Biden in all four this time around, according to a RealClearPolitics average of state polls.
Mr Biden has razor-thin leads in Iowa and North Carolina, according to RealClearPolitics, but is leading by more substantial margins in Florida and Pennsylvania - 3.7 points and 7.1 points, respectively.
Early in-person voting began yesterday in another close state, Georgia, although pictures of hours-long queues that went viral on social media led to accusations of "voter suppression".
More than 10 million Americans have already cast their ballots in the US presidential contest, a tracking group said late yesterday, a record pace three weeks before election day.
The US Elections Project of the University of Florida said the early-vote count is multiple times higher than it was at the same point in 2016.
It is being fuelled by dramatic surges of mail-in voting due to health concerns about casting ballots in person during the coronavirus pandemic.
