Donald Trump compares Covid-19 to seasonal flu after return from hospital

PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES DONALD Trump has once again downplayed the illness that left him in hospital for three days and killed more than 210,000 Americans, again comparing Covid-19 to seasonal flu and noting that he plans to return soon to the bell.

Back in the White House after a dramatic helicopter return from the military hospital where he received an unprecedented level of care for Covid-19, the president’s attitude alarmed infectious disease experts and suggested that his own illness did not. it had made him reconsider his often arrogant attitude. toward the disease, which has also infected the first lady and more than a dozen White House aides and associates.

Eager to project force four weeks into Election Day, Trump, who is still infected with the virus, tweeted that he plans to attend next week’s debate with Democrat Joe Biden in Miami. “It will be great!” he said.

His doctor, Navy Commander Sean Conley, said Trump had a “rest” night at the White House and is “reporting no symptoms” today.

Yesterday afternoon, shortly before the departure of the president of the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, Dr. Conley had said that he would not be completely “out of the woods” for a week.

Trump returned to the White House last night aboard Marine One, climbed the steps of the South Portico before removing his mask and giving a double thumbs up from the deck. He entered the White House, where assistants were seen in the Blue Room, without covering his face.

In a video posted later, he offered a nonchalant view of the virus, contravening his own administration’s public health warnings that Americans take the threat seriously and should take precautions to avoid contracting and spreading the disease as cases develop. continue to increase.

“Don’t be afraid of him,” Trump said, taking a deeper breath than usual. “You are going to beat him. We have the best medical team, we have the best medicines ”.

The president’s doctors rushed him to take experimental antiviral drugs and prescribed an aggressive course of steroids that would not be available to the average patient. While most must cope with their symptoms, and fear that they will get worse, at home and alone, Trump stayed in the presidential suite of one of the best hospitals in the country, and is now in the White House, where there is a team of doctors on call with 24-hour follow-up.

Trump returns to the White House.

“Many people each year, sometimes more than 100,000, and despite the vaccine, die of the flu,” he tweeted Tuesday. “Are we going to close our country? No, we have learned to live with it, just as we are learning to live with Covid, in most populations, much less lethal !!! “

In fact, Covid-19 has already been shown to be a more potent killer, particularly among older populations, than seasonal flu, and has shown signs of having long-term impacts on the health of the younger people it infects.

“We have to be realistic on this: Covid is a total threat to the American population,” said David Nace of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.

“Most people are not as lucky as the president,” with an in-house medical unit and access to experimental treatments, added Dr. Nace, an expert on infections in older adults.

“It’s an inconceivable message,” agreed Sadiya Khan of Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. “I would dare to say that it can precipitate or worsen the spread.”