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WASHINGTON (AP) – US President Donald Trump briefly left the military hospital where he is being treated for COVID-19 in a caravan on Sunday (October 4) to greet supporters gathered outside, drawing criticism from the medical community that he was putting others at risk.
Trump was captured on video waving from the back seat of a black van Sunday night, wearing a mask, as the crowd cheered and waved pro-Trump American flags and placards in front of the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in the suburb. from Bethesda, Maryland, in Washington.
Two people could be seen in the front seats of the vehicle.
Patients who test positive for COVID-19 generally must remain in quarantine for 14 days, the typical incubation period for the coronavirus to avoid infecting others. The disease has killed more than 200,000 Americans.
Trump tested positive Thursday and did not reveal his infection until early Friday morning.
Shortly before the short trip, Trump posted a video on Twitter saying he would “give some of the great patriots we have on the street a little surprise.”
Trump also said in the video that he “learned a lot about COVID” by “actually going to school” as he has battled the virus in hospital.
“This is the real school. This is not the ‘let’s read the books’ school, and I get it, and I get it, and it’s very interesting,” he added.
READ: Doctors monitor Trump’s lungs and administer steroids to fight COVID-19
“APPROPRIATE PRECAUTIONS TAKEN”
White House spokesman Judd Deere described the campaign as a “short last-minute trip in a caravan to greet his supporters” and said Trump quickly returned to his hospital suite.
Deere said “adequate precautions were taken” before the trip to protect the president and his supporters. “The move was authorized by the medical team as insurance,” he said.
Criticism of the trip from the medical community was swift, including from a treating physician at Walter Reed.
Experts complained that the departure violated their own government’s public health guidelines that require patients to isolate themselves while on treatment and are still spreading the virus, and jeopardized the protection of the Secret Service.
“Every person in the vehicle during that completely unnecessary presidential ‘step’ now has to be quarantined for 14 days,” James Phillips, who is also an assistant professor of emergency medicine at George University School of Medicine, said on Twitter. Washington.
“They can get sick. They can die. For the political theater. Ordered by Trump to risk their lives for the theater. This is insane.”
Zeke Emanuel, chairman of the Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy at the University of Pennsylvania and a regular television commentator, described the appearance as “embarrassing.”
“Having your Secret Service agents drive with a COVID-19 patient, with the windows closed no less, puts them unnecessarily at risk of infection. And for what? A public relations stunt,” he tweeted.
READ: Comment: Trump’s positive coronavirus test will worsen divisions in America
CONFUSED MESSAGES
The episode came hours after a briefing by Trump’s medical team, who said he had “continued to improve” and could be returned to the White House, which has all the equipment and expertise necessary to continue his treatment, and to the Monday.
While ordinary members of the public would only be sent home after recovering, Trump can make the most of the White House’s extensive medical facilities, which can match those of a hospital in many treatment areas.
“The president has continued to improve,” said his White House physician, Sean Conley. “As with any disease, there are frequent ups and downs throughout the course.”
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The president was airlifted to Walter Reed with a high fever on Friday after a “rapid progression” of his illness, with his oxygen levels dropping worryingly low, Conley said.
A timeline provided by his advisers and doctors suggested that he met with more than 30 donors Thursday in Bedminster, NJ, even after learning that Hope Hicks had COVID-19, and only hours before announcing his own test. positive.
There were over 200 people at the fundraiser and a contact tracing operation underway in New Jersey is looking for thousands of people who may have been exposed.
In addition to Trump and Hicks, numerous insiders from the White House and at least three Republican senators have contracted COVID-19, along with First Lady Melania Trump, who has not experienced serious symptoms.
Health experts have complained that messages from the administration, and in particular Trump’s medical team, have caused widespread confusion.
Conley admitted Sunday that in a briefing a day earlier he had hidden from the public the fact that the president had received extra oxygen, in an attempt to reflect an “optimistic attitude.”
Adding to the confusion, Conley gave an upbeat account of Trump’s progress on Saturday only to have White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows immediately tell reporters that Trump’s condition had been “very concerning” and that “I was not yet on a clear path to recovery.”
And while medical updates have come in regularly, questions remain about the medications Trump was given and their implications, how severe his fever became, when he last tested negative and if there is any lung damage.
When asked what the tests had revealed about Trump’s lung condition, Conley replied: “There are some expected findings, but nothing of great clinical concern.”
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