Trump declares ‘I get it’ after his first-hand coronavirus education
President Donald Trump has declared, “I get it,” in a message to the nation before briefly leaving hospital to salute cheering supporters from his motorcade.
The surprising move raises new questions about his understanding of the deadly coronavirus that has killed more than 209,000 Americans.
Hours earlier, the president’s medical team reported his blood oxygen level dropped suddenly twice in recent days. The doctors also said his health is improving and that he could be discharged as early as Monday.
“It’s been a very interesting journey. I learned a lot about COVID,” Trump said, standing in his hospital room in a video posted on social media on Sunday. “I learned it by really going to school.”
He added, “I get it, and I understand it.”
At least one medical professional inside Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, where Trump has been hospitalised since Friday evening, questioned whether Trump had really learned anything about the virus that has swept through Republican leadership.
“Every single person in the vehicle during that completely unnecessary presidential ‘drive-by’ just now has to be quarantined for 14 days,” Dr James P. Phillips, an attending physician at Walter Reed, tweeted.
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“They might get sick. They may die. For political theater. Commanded by Trump to put their lives at risk for theater. This is insanity.”
Trump’s doctors revealed on Sunday they gave the president a steroid treatment typically only recommended for the very sick.
But they sidestepped questions about exactly when Trump’s blood oxygen dropped – an episode they neglected to mention in multiple statements the day before – or whether lung scans showed any damage.
It was the second straight day of confusion and obfuscation from a White House already suffering from a credibility crisis.
And it raised questions about whether the doctors treating the president were sharing accurate, timely information with the American public about the severity of him condition.
Pressed about conflicting information he and the White House released on Saturday, Navy Commander Dr Sean Conley acknowledged he had tried to present a rosy description of the president’s condition.
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“I was trying to reflect the upbeat attitude of the team, that the president, that his course of illness has had. Didn’t want to give any information that might steer the course of illness in another direction,” Conley said.
“And in doing so, came off like we’re trying to hide something, which wasn’t necessarily true. The fact of the matter is that he’s doing really well.”
The briefing outside the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center lasted 10 minutes.
Medical experts said Conley’s revelations raised new questions about how ill the president was and are hard to square with the doctor’s upbeat assessment and talk of a discharge.
“There’s a little bit of a disconnect,” said Dr Steven Shapiro, chief medical and scientific officer at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.
Blood oxygen saturation is a key health marker for COVID-19 patients.
A normal reading is between 95 and 100. Conley said the president had a “high fever” and a blood oxygen level below 94 per cent on Friday and during “another episode” on Saturday.
He was evasive about the timing of Trump oxygen drops. (“It was over the course of the day, yeah, yesterday morning,” he said) and asked whether Trump’s level had dropped below 90 per cent, into concerning territory.
(“We don’t have any recordings here on that.”) But he revealed Trump was given a dose of the steroid dexamethasone in response.
At the time of the briefing, Trump’s blood oxygen level was 98 per cent – within normal rage, Trump’s medical team said.
Trump was back on social media Sunday.
First he shared a video of flag-waving supporters outside the hospital, many of them not wearing face masks to prevent spread of the virus.
And later, he sent his loyalists a direct message on Twitter: “The fact is, they really love our Country and are seeing how we are MAKING IT GREATER THAN EVER BEFORE!”
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