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UNITED STATES PRESIDENT DONALD Trump rallied hundreds of cheering supporters for a campaign-style comeback event at the White House yesterday, returning to the electoral race nine days after Covid-19 stopped him in his tracks.
“I feel great,” Trump said as he stepped onto a White House balcony, removing his mask to address the crowd below, most masked under their red “Make America Great Again” hats, but with little social distancing. .
“Get out there and vote, and I love you,” Trump told supporters, who chanted “America” and “Four more years” throughout the speech that lasted just under 20 minutes.
Far behind his 77-year-old Democratic rival, Joe Biden, in polls less than four weeks before Election Day, Trump has been counting the days until he can hit the ground again.
The White House doctor announced last night that the president “is no longer considered a transmission risk.”
The tests showed that “there was no longer evidence that the virus was actively replicating” and that Trump’s viral load was “decreasing,” Sean Conley said, though he did not say that the president is now virus-free.
Guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say that, for mild or moderate cases of Covid-19, isolation and precautions can be discontinued 10 days after the onset of symptoms and once patients have fever free for 24 hours. However, the severity of Trump’s illness has not been confirmed.
Yesterday’s event set the stage for a full-blown campaign rally tomorrow in Florida, immediately followed by two more on the battlefield of Pennsylvania on Tuesday and Iowa on Wednesday.
Biden has criticized Trump’s “reckless” determination to gather large crowds during the pandemic, but the president has brushed aside concerns, insisting that the United States has the upper hand against the virus despite a death toll of 213,000 and in increase.
“I want you to know that our nation is going to defeat this terrible virus from China,” Trump said.
“It is going away. It’s disappearing “.
“We are producing powerful drugs and therapies, we are curing the sick and we are going to recover, and the vaccine is coming out very quickly, in record time, as you know.”
‘The hard truth’
While the 74-year-old Trump has come out on his feet, and seemed smiling and energetic in the White House, questions about his health persist, with the president’s doctor accused of lack of transparency with the public.
Trump’s greater responsibility, overwhelming public dissatisfaction with his handling of the pandemic, has once again become the main theme of the campaign thanks to his own infection, and cases are on the rise again across the country.
The seven-day average of new daily cases recorded between October 3-9 (47,184) was the highest since the week of August 13-19, according to an AFP analysis of data from Johns Hopkins University.
“More than 213,000 Americans have died from this virus, and the harsh truth is it didn’t have to happen this way,” Biden tweeted yesterday.
For months, following the lead of a president who mostly avoided and sometimes scoffed at the wearing of masks, masked White House advisers were rarely seen inside the west wing.
Since Trump and his wife Melania tested positive, the mood has changed and wearing a mask was mandatory at yesterday’s event.
A similar meeting two weeks ago to announce the nomination of conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court has been singled out as a likely source for many of the dozens of positive cases linked to the White House since.
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Anthony Fauci, the respected director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has referred to it as a “super spread event.”
Many questions remain unanswered about the White House outbreak, with more than a dozen cases registered in the president’s inner circle, including his spokesperson Kayleigh McEnany.
“When was the president’s last negative Covid test?” asked Pete Buttigieg, a former contender for the Democratic presidential nomination, now targeted for a prominent role in a Biden administration if he defeats Trump on November 3.
Biden, Barack Obama’s vice president, is currently about 10 points ahead in national polls with a solid lead on key battlefields.
And in the Republican field, there is increasingly palpable concern about the state of the race.
“If on Election Day people are angry and hopeless and depressed … I think it could be a terrible choice,” Senator Ted Cruz warned this week.
“I think we could lose the White House and both houses of Congress, that it could be a bloodbath of the proportions of Watergate.”
– © AFP 2020
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