Duterte wishes Trump a ‘full and speedy recovery’ from COVID-19, says Roque

MANILA – President Rodrigo Duterte wishes his US counterpart, Donald Trump, a “full and speedy recovery” from the novel coronavirus disease, Malacañang said on Monday.

The two world leaders are “close friends,” Duterte spokesman Harry Roque said.

“He wishes President Trump and his wife, First Lady Melania, a full and speedy recovery,” Roque said at a news conference.

The American leader announced last Friday that he and his wife Melania were diagnosed with COVID-19. Trump’s doctors said Sunday that he “has continued to improve” and added that he could be discharged Monday.

Duterte, Trump and Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil are among the world leaders whose “medical populism” can be blamed for “the failure to suppress the epidemic,” according to The Lancet COVID-19 Commission.

The statement, released in time for the 75th anniversary of the United Nations General Assembly, was based on the study of medical anthropologist Gideon Lasco.

Citing the examples of Trump, Bolsonaro and Duterte, Lasco described how political leaders resorted to “simplifying the pandemic by minimizing its impacts or promoting easy solutions or treatments, spectacularizing their responses to the crisis, forging divisions between the ‘people’ and the dangerous. ‘ others’. ‘, and make medical knowledge claims to support the above. “

“All countries must combat decisions based on hearsay and misinformation. Leaders must desist from expressing personal views that are at odds with science,” the commission said.

Duterte previously told Filipinos that they could use gasoline to disinfect masks, worrying medical experts who feared the public might take his word for it. She said she wasn’t kidding.

In April, Trump suggested injecting bleach into his body as a treatment for COVID-19, alarming the medical community.

– with a report by Christian V. Esguerra, ABS-CBN News