Trump holds first rally since contracting COVID-19

SANFORD, Florida: Just a week after his release from the hospital, President Donald Trump returned to the election campaign Monday (October 12) for the first time since contracting COVID-19, while attempting to make a late comeback in the final. of the elections. section.

“It’s great to be back in my home state of Florida to make my official campaign return,” Trump declared in front of a crowd of thousands of supporters, standing shoulder to shoulder, mostly without masks, despite the continuing pandemic.

“I am so energized by your prayers and humbled by your support,” he said.

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Trump, whose doctor first said Monday that he had received a negative test for COVID-19, is pushing to correct a stubborn deficit in the national and state battlefield polls.

His rally in Sanford on Monday night was his first stop in a busy week that will include events in Pennsylvania, Iowa, North Carolina and Wisconsin.

The solid schedule underscores the work Trump must do as he tries to win over voters just three weeks before Election Day. And it comes amid still unanswered questions about the impact that so many trips so soon could have on the 74-year-old president’s health. The progression of COVID-19 is often unpredictable and there can be long-term complications.

After Air Force One took off from Joint Base Andrews, the president’s doctor released an update on his health that said Trump had tested negative for the virus, and had done so on consecutive days. His doctor, Scott Conley, said the tests, along with other data, including viral load, have led him to conclude that Trump was not contagious.

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For days, the White House had dodged questions about whether Trump had tested negative. Conley said over the weekend that the president met the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention criteria for safely interrupting isolation and that under “currently recognized standards,” Trump is no longer considered a risk. of transmission.

Trump, eager to campaign again, says he is now “immune” to the virus, a claim that is impossible to prove given the limitations in what scientists know about the coronavirus.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease expert, said Monday on CNN that those recovering from COVID-19 are likely to be immune for a limited period of time, but that cases are emerging of people being reinfected. weeks or months later.

Fauci, speaking as Trump was preparing to leave the White House for Florida, questioned the advisability of holding such an event. He noted that test positivity rates are increasing in parts of the sunbelt.

“We know that’s asking for trouble when you do that,” Fauci said.

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Some medical experts have also expressed skepticism that Trump could be declared contagion-free so soon. And it was unclear what additional precautions and security measures, if any, the campaign planned to take to prevent the trip from further spreading a virus that has already infected many of the president’s aides and closest allies, including his manager of campaign and the head of the Republican Party.

Florida is seen as critical to Trump’s reelection chances. Trump narrowly beat his 2016 rival, Democrat Hillary Clinton, in the state by just over 112,000 votes. Some recent polls have suggested a close race in the state, while others have put Democrat Joe Biden ahead.

Trump’s decision to return so quickly to the campaign drew criticism from Biden and other Democrats.

“President Trump arrives in Sanford today bringing nothing but reckless behavior, divisive rhetoric and sowing fear,” Biden said in a statement. “But, equally dangerous is what it fails to bring: no plan to contract this virus that has claimed the lives of more than 15,000 Floridians under control.”

Florida State Representative Shevrin Jones, a Democrat running for state Senate who recently recovered from his own COVID-19 infection, said in a conference call with reporters that Trump should not come to Florida.

“He’s reckless and irresponsible,” Jones said.

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Florida attorney Dan Uhfelder, who dressed up as the Grim Reaper on the beaches to highlight the threat of coronavirus, filed a lawsuit Monday to prevent Trump from holding his rally in Sanford. He sought to have the event classified as a public nuisance.

Trump, for his part, is eager to show the world that he is no longer sidelined by a virus that he has always downplayed and that has killed 215,000 people across the country.

Since being released from a military hospital after three days of 24-hour care that included access to experimental antibody treatments that were not available to the public, Trump has used his personal experience to try to convince the public that he had reason from the beginning.

He has repeatedly told Americans who contract the virus that “they are going to get better very fast,” even though hundreds of people in the US die from the virus every day.

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Trump held his first public event since his diagnosis Saturday, addressing a crowd of hundreds on the South Lawn from a White House balcony. Appearing without a mask and with bandages still visible on his hands, likely from intravenous injections, Trump spoke for just 18 minutes, far less than his usual campaign rallies, which can last more than 90 minutes.

He told the crowd that the virus is “disappearing” even as cases have been on the rise.

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