The Unanswered Questions – VG

The corona virus has so far caused more than 35 million infections worldwide and more than 200,000 deaths in the United States alone. On Friday night, the president himself confirmed that he and the first lady have joined the list of infected in the country.

At a press conference, the doctor’s president, Sean Conley, announced that the president was allowed to leave the hospital Monday night.

Civita adviser and US expert Eirik Løkke says the situation around Trump has been chaotic and it has been difficult to understand what happened behind the scenes after the president was confirmed to be infected.

– The president is a notorious liar. In addition, Chief of Staff Mark Meadows contributes to the confusion over Trump’s health, to which his doctor has also contributed, he says.

However, Løkke believes that the White House has not necessarily intervened to deliberately mislead the public.

– But it is at least difficult to trust the information there. We cannot take what they serve us for good fish and we have to investigate ourselves, a bit like what comes from Beijing, says the advisor.

It is not common with the opening

American expert and professor Jennifer Leigh Bailey from NTNU’s Department of Sociology and Political Science says a lack of transparency about the health of American presidents is common.

– The criticism is somewhat exaggerated. It is not uncommon for the health of presidents not to be made public. It happened to both Ronald Reagan and John F. Kennedy, who were very seriously ill without the public noticing along the way.

At the same time, it reminds us that the current context is different.

– We are in the middle of the pandemic and the situation demands more openness about the president’s health, also because it gives important signals to the population about how the pandemic should be managed, he says.

Here are some of the key questions that remain unanswered:

When did you get infected?

According to press secretary Keyleigh McEany, Trump undergoes tests several times a day. On Sunday, however, he declined to respond when Trump last gave a negative test, writes The Pavlovic Today.

On Monday, it emerged that McEany himself tested positive for the virus.

Eirik Løkke at Civita believes that the lack of information about Trump’s testing regime may contribute to raising doubts.

– It is tempting to believe that the reason the White House is not publishing the schedule is that this will reveal that the President’s trial regime and its protection have been carelessly handled. Why else shouldn’t they be open about this? He asks.

Former Baltimore health expert Leana Wen says according to Politico that Trump’s rapid progression from diagnosis to severe symptoms is highly unusual.

– The average time from symptoms to shortness of breath is five to eight days. For all of this to have happened over the course of a day, the president must have been exposed to a great deal of infection, or there is something strange about the times here, he says.

It was previously known that Trump and his entourage did not have time to test themselves before the election debate on Tuesday night.

Therefore, it is unclear how long Trump and his close contacts may have been potential sources of infection for others. The president has previously criticized the introduction of strict infection control measures and, among other things, has avoided the use of face masks in various public appearances.

Has Trump tried to keep the White House a secret?

Several US outlets, including The Wall Street Journal, have claimed that Trump was diagnosed with the infection earlier than he himself admitted.

The newspaper writes that Trump should have had a positive rapid test result before appearing in an interview with Fox-News on Thursday, and that he avoided telling about it while waiting for a response to a more comprehensive test.

During the interview with Fox-News, the president confirmed that his close adviser Hope Hicks was infected with the coronavirus, and that he had been tested himself.

– I will receive an answer to my exam tonight or early tomorrow, he said during the interview.

Rapid tests that the White House has access to typically give a result in 15 minutes, according to CNBC.

The president is also said to have asked an advisor who received a positive test result not to tell anyone. So far, at least 17 people in Trump’s circle have tested positive for the virus.

See full description: Trump’s close contacts before testing positive for coronavirus

How critical has the president’s health been?

– It feels very good. Don’t be afraid of the covid. Don’t let it rule your life wrote Donald Trump on Twitter before he was discharged from the hospital on Monday night.

The president’s doctor, Sean Conley, has consistently emphasized that the president has been feeling fine, including during the press conference where it was announced that Trump would have the rest of the follow-up at his home in the White House.

On the other hand, White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows has previously stated that Trump’s condition was “very disturbing.”

In Sunday’s doctor’s letter, there were also key questions about the president’s health that the medical team avoided answering, writes Politico.

It was about what kind of research has been done on Trump’s lungs and what they might have found there. That which turned stated, is that doctors have made “expected findings” without elaborating on this, writes the website.

The medical team has confirmed that the president has needed oxygen twice when the oxygen content has dropped below 94 percent. However, it is currently unknown how low the president’s oxygen levels have been at the most critical level.

Trump is now being treated with one with a mixture of various drugs, including the steroid “Deksamentason,” which is generally reserved for severely ill corona patients in the United States.

– Non-critical Covid-19 patients will choose not to receive this treatment, anesthesiologist Jon Henrik Laake said in Rikshospitalet on Sunday. He has been involved in work on the World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines regarding the drug Trump is now receiving.

Will Mike Pence need to take over the presidency?

It is enshrined in the United States Constitution that the vice president has the opportunity to act as interim president, among other things, if the incumbent president loses consciousness for medical reasons. The same applies if the president dies.

According to Politico, this has only happened three times before in history, even when George W. Bush was stunned in an operation in 2002, and Vice President Dick Cheney took over as president temporarily.

Vice President Mike Pence confirmed Saturday that he tested negative for the crown and that he intends to continue the election campaign as usual, without being quarantined.

On Friday afternoon, before Trump arrived at Walter Reed Hospital, the White House insisted that the president remain in power.

“Without transfer, it is the president who decides,” spokeswoman Judd Deere told The New York Times.

However, it is currently unknown if Trump will return to work as president after he was discharged from the hospital Monday night.

How will this affect the presidential elections?

Deborah Kitchen-Døderlein, an associate professor of American history at UiO, believes that Trump’s diagnosis is definitely something that will affect the presidential election.

– There are many indications that those who become infected may be affected by the disease for a long time afterwards. Trump is 74 years old, will he have enough energy to continue the presidential campaign as usual? It’s obvious that Trump has been quite ill, which may shake the voter base that previously perceived him as a strong figure, he says.

In several of the tip states, including Wisconsin and Michigan, there have been huge protests against the closing of the company as a result of the crown.

Kitchen-Døderlein claims that Trump has helped convince people that the pandemic is a hoax Democrats have created in hopes of swaying the election, but now that he has become more ill he has to admit that the virus it’s dangerous, something. which may seem counterintuitive to your constituents in major states.

When Brazilian President Bolsonaro became infected with the coronavirus earlier this year, he saw a surge in support, partly due to a wave of sympathy in the population.

However, the associate professor believes it was easier for Bolsonaro to argue that the virus was harmless, as it apparently had milder symptoms.

“If Trump continues to say the same thing, after more than 200,000 people have died from the virus in the United States, I think, however, that the pipe may have a different sound,” he says.

Just hours before Trump’s infection was confirmed, he hosted a fundraiser at the Sun Golf Club in New Jersey, along with at least 206 other participants. Kitchen-Døderlein believes it could have major consequences if Trump turns out to have spread the infection to some of his biggest donors.

– These are people who have a lot of power and money, and if it turns out that Trump has spread the virus directly among them, some of his cash flow may run out. In the worst case, they can give the money to their opponent. “I think this is something that could really hurt Trump,” he said.