Donald Trump finally wore a face mask in public for the first time

President Trump has finally worn a face mask in public for the first time during the coronavirus pandemic.

The 45th president of the United States wore a mask on Saturday while visiting the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Maryland.

Watch the president wearing a mask in the news report below: 

"I've never been against masks but I do believe they have a time and a place," he said as he left the White House, the BBC reported.

This comes after Trump previously said that he was not going to wear a mask to protect himself against the coronavirus and mocked his political rival Joe Biden for doing so.

However, on Saturday, he said: "I think when you're in a hospital, especially in that particular setting, where you're talking to a lot of soldiers and people that, in some cases, just got off the operating tables, I think it's a great thing to wear a mask."

This comes as the John Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center reported that there have been a total of 134,815 from COVID-19 in the US at the time of writing.

In an interview with Fox Business Network last week, President Trump said: "I'm all for masks."

He added that he "sort of liked" how he looked in a facemask and compared himself to the Lone Ranger, a fictional masked hero who fought outlaws in the American Old West.

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But when the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) recommended wearing facemasks to halt the spread of the virus back in April, Trump said that he would not be partaking in the practice.

"I don't think I'm going to be doing it," he said at the time. "Wearing a face mask as I greet presidents, prime ministers, dictators, kings, queens - I just don't see it."

The president even went as far as to tell the Wall Street Journal that some people might wear masks to signal disapproval of him.

Trump attempted to explain his initial disapproval of facemasks by explaining that people touch their faces when removing them.

"They put their finger on the mask, and they take them off, and then they start touching their eyes and touching their nose and their mouth. And then they don't know how they caught it?" he said.