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WASHINGTON – U.S. President Donald Trump declared himself immune to COVID-19 as he prepares to return to the election campaign in a fight to regain ground against growing White House rival Joe Biden.
“It seems like I’m immune to, I don’t know, maybe for a long time and maybe for a short time, it could be a lifetime, no one really knows, but I’m immune,” Trump said in an interview with Fox News. , one day after his doctor stated that he was no longer a risk of transmitting the disease.
“You have a president who is immune … so now you have a president who doesn’t have to hide in a basement like his opponent,” he added, in a blow to Democrat Biden and his much more cautious approach to campaigning in a pandemic.
READ: Trump ‘no longer considered a risk of transmission’: WH doctor
It is not yet clear to what extent contracting COVID-19 confers immunity against future infections, with early studies suggesting a few months, while newer ones have indicated that it could last longer.
While recognizing that, in general, a person recovering from a viral infection is protected against a new infection, the World Health Organization warned in August: “For COVID-19, we still do not have enough data to confirm whether the antibodies protect, what levels of antibodies are required or how long the protection will last. “
During his phone interview on Fox News, Trump suggested that his rival in the White House might be ill.
LEE: Trump greets COVID ‘blessing’ when he returns to the Oval Office
“If you look at Joe, yesterday he was coughing horribly and grabbing his mask, coughing,” Trump said. “And I don’t know what that was all about, and it didn’t get a lot of press.”
Biden’s campaign has been publishing daily coronavirus tests for its candidate since Trump tested positive on October 1, sending him to the hospital for three nights and derailing his campaign.
There has been less transparency around Trump’s own health, and his medical team repeatedly declined to say when the negative test for the virus lasted. That has fueled suspicions that she may not have been tested for several days before her diagnosis.
Trump rallied hundreds of supporters for a comeback event at the White House on Saturday, and is planning back-to-back rallies this week to save his struggling campaign three weeks after the Nov.3 election.
