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US President Donald Trump has said that he has made a full recovery from Covid-19 and does not pose a risk of infection to others, freeing him up to once again hold large campaign rallies during the last weeks of the race for the White House.
Trump also said, without presenting evidence, that he was now immune, a claim that attracted a Twitter flag for violating the social media platform’s rules on misleading information related to Covid-19.
Trump’s comments came a day after his doctor said the president had given him a test that showed he was no longer contagious. It did not directly say whether Trump had tested negative for Covid-19.
“I passed the highest test, the highest standards and I am in great shape,” Trump told the Fox News Sunday Morning Futures program.
Trump, who is behind his Democratic rival Joe Biden in opinion polls, is eager to get back into the election campaign after an absence of more than a week. He plans to travel to the key state of Florida tomorrow, followed by demonstrations in Pennsylvania and Iowa on Tuesday and Wednesday respectively.
The president, who spent three days in the hospital after revealing that he had tested positive on October 2, said he was no longer taking drugs for the coronavirus and was now immune to reinfection.
“It seems like I’m immune to, I don’t know, maybe for a long time, maybe for a short time. It could be a lifetime. No one really knows,” Trump told Fox.
Scientific evidence has not been conclusive on how long people who have recovered from Covid-19 have antibodies and are protected from a second infection.
The president’s illness has focused on his handling of the coronavirus pandemic, which has infected nearly 7.7 million people in the United States and killed more than 214,000.
His administration has faced criticism for its lax approach to mask wearing and social distancing in the White House. At least 11 close Trump advisers have tested positive for the coronavirus.
Opinion polls show Biden with a substantial advantage nationally, albeit with a smaller advantage in some of the states that may decide the outcome of the November 3 election.
“Now you have a president who doesn’t have to hide in the basement, like his opponent,” Trump said in a shot at Biden, who was mocked for wearing a mask and keeping a light and socially distanced campaign schedule.
Trump addressed supporters from a White House balcony yesterday afternoon, urging a crowd of hundreds of supporters, mostly black and Latino, to help get the vote.
Standing alone at the event, Trump was not wearing a mask as he spoke. In the crowd, most wore masks but did not follow social distancing guidelines.
With Trump’s handling of the pandemic dominating the campaign, a Reuters / Ipsos poll showed Americans consistently losing confidence in how he has handled the health crisis, with their net approval on the issue reaching a new low.
Biden was off the campaign trail today, attending church in his home state of Delaware and heading to a virtual fundraiser where he told donors that the country was being “ripped apart” by Trump’s divisive policies.
Trump repeated his earlier calls for states to reopen their economies even as the pandemic shows little sign of abating. New cases of Covid-19 in the United States hit a two-month high on Friday.
Nationwide, the United States reports an average of 48,000 new cases a day and coronavirus hospitalizations in the Midwest hit a record for the sixth day in a row yesterday, according to a Reuters analysis.
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