Trump faces ‘mild’ symptoms of COVID-19, race for White House in crisis

United States President Donald Trump speaks about COVID-19 testing in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, DC on September 28, 2020 (Photo by MANDEL NGAN / AFP).

WASHINGTON, United States – Donald Trump’s chief of staff said Friday that the president was experiencing “mild symptoms” of COVID-19, after explosive news of his infection disrupted the race for the White House a month before the Republican will face challenger Joe Biden at the polls.

Trump, 74, who has continued to question the severity of the pandemic even as the death toll in the United States surpassed 200,000, announced in a late-night tweet that he and first lady Melania Trump, 50, had tested positive and they were going into quarantine.

Briefing reporters at the White House on Friday morning, Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows, said that the president was experiencing “mild symptoms” but remained “in a good mood” and “very energetic.”

“The American people can rest assured that we have a president who is not only at work, he will continue to work, and I am optimistic that he will have a very quick and rapid recovery.”

Meadows said Trump’s doctor would continue to treat him at the White House, declining to give details of any treatment he is being given.

Melania Trump, for her part, tweeted that “overall she felt good” and hoped to recover quickly.

“Thank you for the love you send us,” he wrote.

While its eventual effect on the race remains unpredictable, news of the lightning bolt had immediate electoral consequences for Trump, forcing him to cancel a planned rally later Friday in the key state of Florida.

Later, it seemed certain that the Republican, who lags far behind Democrat Biden in polls before Nov. 3, would have to abandon a weekend trip to Wisconsin, another battlefield, as well as a tour of the states. from the west next week.

And a question mark looms over his second televised debate, scheduled for Oct. 15, against Biden, who has made criticism of Trump’s response to the coronavirus his key issue.

The Democrat, who was mocked by Trump for his conspicuous use of masks as they shared the stage of the debate, unmasked, last Tuesday in Cleveland, said he and his wife Jill wished the couple a “speedy recovery.”

“We will continue to pray for the health and safety of the President and his family,” Biden wrote on Twitter.

Contact tracking

News of Trump’s infection just after one of his closest advisers, Hope Hicks, tested positive, raised fears that a cluster of cases emanated from the heart of the White House.

Trump met with dozens of people during the week and reportedly went to a fundraiser in New Jersey after it became known that Hicks had contracted the virus.

The White House said it was conducting contact tracing, while Melania Trump’s spokeswoman said the couple’s 14-year-old son, Barron, had tested negative.

Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo let it be known that they had tested negative, and the White House said Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett had also received the nod.

But GOP Chair Ronna McDaniel, who was with Trump for the last time on September 25, tested positive earlier this week, according to US media reports.

Trump’s positive test was more than a public relations disaster for a president who has gone all-in on trying to persuade Americans that fears of the virus are overblown.

In what has become an overtly political gesture, Trump hardly ever wears a mask in public, an example followed by his supporters and many of his aides.

The president has been using large rallies to try to change the subject of his highly criticized response to Covid-19, promising in a speech Thursday that “the end of the pandemic is in sight.”

All that is now on hold, and the clock ticks the elections.

Now Trump has become the highest-profile patient in the world, showing that all the resources of the White House failed to prevent the risk.

As the shocking news sent global stocks plummeting, leaders like Germany’s Angela Merkel and Britain’s Boris Johnson wished the president and first lady a speedy recovery, while Russian President Vladimir Putin predicted that “vitality, good cheer and optimism “of Trump would carry it out.

Technically obese and in his 70s, Trump is in a higher risk category.

Dr. Daniel Griffin, an infectious disease specialist in the New York area, told AFP that Trump had an estimated 20 percent chance of developing a serious illness that required oxygenation, in light of his age and weight.

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