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US President Donald Trump says he is doing well, but the next few days will be the “real test.”
The video, posted to Twitter on Saturday night, comes after mixed messages earlier in the day about his health, following a Covid-19 diagnosis.
The president’s doctor said Saturday night that Trump was fine and had made “substantial progress since the diagnosis.”
Trump will spend his second night in the hospital.
Dr. Sean Conley said in a statement that “while he is not out of the woods yet, the team remains cautiously optimistic” about the president’s condition.
A few hours earlier, in the four-minute video message, Trump, dressed in a suit jacket and shirt without a tie, thanked doctors and nurses at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center near Washington DC, where he is being treated. .
“I came here, I wasn’t feeling so good, I’m much better now,” he said, then added, “Over the next few days, I guess that’s the real test. We’ll see what happens after the next two days.
He said he wanted to go back to the campaign. Trump faces Joe Biden in the November 3 presidential election.
The positive diagnosis of Covid-19, made public by the president in a tweet early Friday, has changed his campaign and has also cast doubt on his attempt to have a new Supreme Court judge confirmed before the day of the elections.
What do we know about Trump’s condition?
On Saturday morning, Dr. Conley said that the president was not receiving additional oxygen for now and had been fever-free for 24 hours.
The president is expected to stay in Walter Reed for “a few days,” according to the White House.
Dr. Conley said he was “cautiously optimistic” about Trump’s condition, but could not give a timetable for his discharge.
However, White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows expressed concern about the president’s condition and said he was not yet on a clear path to recovery.
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He told reporters that the president’s vital signs over the past 24 hours had been “very worrying” and that the next 48 hours would be critical.
The 74-year-old president is a man and someone classified as obese is in a higher risk category for Covid-19. So far he has been treated with an experimental drug cocktail injection and an antiviral drug remdesivir.
At Saturday’s press conference, Dr. Conley declined to say whether the president had ever taken oxygen despite being questioned repeatedly. “None at this time and yesterday with the team, while we were all here, he was not on oxygen,” he said.
Shortly afterward, multiple US media reported that doctors had given the president supplemental oxygen at the White House on Friday before deciding to transfer him to Walter Reed. It was unclear if he was having trouble breathing and needed it.
In an evening statement, Trump’s medical team said the president completed a second dose of remdesivir.
They said he spent most of the afternoon “doing business and moving around the medical room without difficulty.”
First lady Melania Trump, who also tested positive for Covid-19, is said to be fine and continues to rest at the White House.
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Who else around the president has tested positive?
Dr. Conley did not respond to questions about when and where he believed Trump was infected. A packed Rose Garden event last weekend, when the president formally announced his nomination of conservative Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, is receiving intense attention.
In addition to the president and first lady, six other people in attendance are now confirmed to have the virus. On Saturday, campaign advisor and former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie became the latest to report a positive result.
Other people who have tested positive around Trump include his close aide Hope Hicks, who is believed to be the first to show symptoms, campaign manager Bill Stepien and former White House adviser Kellyanne Conway.
Meanwhile, Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said the Senate would postpone its full session work until Oct. 19, but that work on the Judiciary Committee, which will examine Judge Barrett’s nomination, will continue.
Later Saturday, the senator said in a tweet that he had had a phone call with the president, who sounded “good and says he feels good.”
Trump is still in charge. Vice President Mike Pence, to whom under the constitution the president would transfer power temporarily if he became too ill to perform his duties, tested negative.
The president was last seen in public on Friday night. Before being airlifted to the military hospital, he saluted and gave a thumbs up to reporters but said nothing before boarding his helicopter.
