US President Donald Trump briefly greeted supporters from his car outside the hospital on Sunday, as his doctors believe the sick COVID-19 leader may return to the White House on Monday, if his condition kept improving.
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To everyone’s surprise, a convoy of black vehicles appeared outside the gates of Walter Reed Military Hospital near Washington in the early evening, and Donald Trump, masked, greeted through the window his many supporters, who were there. installed all weekend.
This initiative surprised and aroused strong criticism, in particular related to the risk for the Secret Service agents accompanying it.
Soon after, the White House reported that the president had returned to the hospital.
“I learned a lot about COVID, I learned it by experiencing it myself, it is the school of life,” he also said in a video message posted on Twitter, thanking his doctors and the “great patriots” who watch over him outside.
After two nights in the hospital, cautious optimism prevailed among those around him on Sunday, although the White House doctor finally admitted that his patient’s initial condition had been more serious than what had been officially stated in a report. first time.
Turning around in relation to his press briefing on Saturday, Dr Sean Conley confirmed that Donald Trump did need oxygen supplementation on Friday, for about an hour, at the White House, an episode deemed sufficiently disturbing to decide the hospitalization in the evening.
“I was worried about a potentially rapid progression of the disease, I recommended to the president an oxygen supplementation”, said Sean Conley, who affirms that Donald Trump was not however out of breath.
The doctor admitted that he had not revealed this incident the day before to project an “optimistic” image. While Presidential Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, at the same time, told reporters the previous 24 hours had been very worrying.
“Firmly in charge”
Sean Conley also announced that on Saturday morning, another episode of low oxygen saturation had occurred.
And also Saturday, the doctors administered to the president a third treatment, dexamethasone, a corticosteroid effective against the severe forms of COVID-19, in addition to the antiviral remdesivir and the experimental cocktail of the company Regeneron, administered as of Friday.
But the medical team said on Sunday that the improvement in symptoms was such that they were preparing for Mr. Trump’s return to the White House, where he could continue with injections of remdesivir, among other things, with intravenous treatment scheduled to last five days. .
“There are a lot of things that can be done in the White House,” said spokesperson for the president, Alyssa Farah.
But Sean Conley refused to describe the state of Donald Trump’s lungs, the question of the aftermath of such a heavy burden as the presidency of the United States. He only replied: “We made expected observations, but nothing major from a clinical point of view.”
Donald Trump thus applied Sunday to give the image of a president admittedly hospitalized, but at work – “firmly in control”, according to Robert O’Brien, his national security adviser, on CBS.
He’s started tweeting and phoning again, as his son Eric, advisor Jason Miller, even Fox News host Jeanine Pirro testified …
The septuagenarian broadcast photographs of him “at work” from the hospital, and he posted two videos from the hospital. On Saturday evening, he admitted that the next few days would be “the real test”, COVID-19 being notorious for the sudden degradation that some patients undergo after a tolerable initial phase.
As for the campaign, a poll taken after the presidential debate last Tuesday, but before his hospitalization and published on Sunday reports a considerable increase in voting intentions for Democratic candidate Joe Biden: 53% against 39%, according to this NBC / Wall survey Street Journal.
Negligence
The controversy swelled at the same time over the precautions, or the lack of precautions taken by the White House and the Trump family against the coronavirus, but also over the decision to let Vice President Mike Pence continue to campaign for the election of the November 3, when he would take the interim in case of incapacity of Donald Trump.
The executive’s prevention policy was based entirely on tests, an error denounced by experts for months and which seems to have made the White House a hotbed of contamination.
“You can’t say on the one hand that we have to act, and on the other hand let the virus circulate freely. He ended up circulating freely in the White House ”, regretted Nancy Pelosi, Democratic president of the House of Representatives, on CBS.
So on Saturday, September 26, dozens of elected officials and Republican figures flocked there for the appointment by Donald Trump of Justice Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, outdoors, but also indoors – an event that binds many positive cases declared in recent days, including senators and presidential collaborators.
The Biden team finds itself reassured in its decision to lead a limited campaign, with a strong virtual component, and to scrupulously respect barrier gestures.
As for the second televised debate between the two men, scheduled for October 15, Camp Biden confirms that Joe Biden will be there. The Democrat, so far negative in his tests, will also campaign in Florida on Monday.