Trump’s SUV ride called ‘reckless’
WASHINGTON: Doctors, critics, and other Twitter users reacted after President Donald Trump ventured outside Walter Reed Hospital yesterday to wave at supporters, calling the move ‘‘reckless’’ and saying he endangered the Secret Service members riding in the vehicle with him.
Dr James P. Phillips, an attending physician at Walter Reed, tweeted that everybody in the vehicle with Trump should be quarantined for 14 days.
‘‘They might get sick. They may die,’’ he tweeted. ‘‘For political theatre. Commanded by Trump to put their lives at risk for theatre. This is insanity.
‘‘That Presidential SUV is not only bulletproof, but hermetically sealed against chemical attack. The risk of Covid19 transmission inside is as high as it gets outside of medical procedures. The irresponsibility is astounding.
‘‘My thoughts are with the Secret Service forced to play,’’ said Dr Phillips, who is also chief of disaster medicine at George Washington University Emergency Medicine.
‘‘Imagine having a literal Covid parade,’’ tweeted Meena Harris, niece of vicepresidential nominee Senator Kamala Harris.
White House spokesman Judd Deere said ‘‘appropriate precautions were taken in the execution of this movement to protect the president and all those supporting it, including PPE. The movement was cleared by the medical team as safe to do.’’
Trump (74) wore a mask as he waved from the back seat of a black SUV that crawled in a caravan of vehicles in front of the medical centre, while supporters waving Trump 2020 flags chanted ‘‘USA! USA!’’
Hours before Trump’s motorcade, his doctors said they were monitoring the condition of his lungs after he received supplemental oxygen.
He had taken two doses of a fiveday course of intravenous antiviral drug Remdesivir, as well as the steroid dexamethasone, which is used in severe cases.
Dexamethasone is shown in studies to improve survival for patients with severe or critical Covid19 who need extra oxygen. But it should not be given in mild cases, since it can limit the body’s own ability to combat the virus, according to guidelines from the Infectious Disease Society of America.
White House physician Sean P. Conley admitted the president’s condition had been worse than previously disclosed but said Trump was improving.
Commenting on previous contradictory assessments of Trump’s health, he said he was ‘‘trying to reflect an upbeat attitude of the team and the president about the course his illness has had’’.
‘‘I didn’t want to give any information that might steer the course of illness in another direction and in doing so, it came off that we were trying to hide something, which isn’t necessarily true.’’
Asked what tests had revealed about the condition of Trump’s lungs, Conley replied: ‘‘There’s some expected findings, but nothing of any major clinical concern.’’
Conley’s response suggested the Xrays revealed some signs of pneumonia, said Dr Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease specialist at Johns Hopkins University.
‘‘The expected finding is that he has evidence of pneumonia in the Xray. If it was normal, they would just say it is normal,’’ Adalja said.
Trump said in video remarks on Twitter that he had ‘‘learned a lot about Covid’’.
‘‘I learned it by really going to school. This is the real school. This isn’t the let’sreadthebook school, and I get it, and I understand it.’’
Biden campaign foreign policy adviser Tony Blinken tweeted back that Trump’s realisations about Covid19 were ‘‘devastating’’ at this late stage.
‘‘The time to do that was 200K deaths ago, not when it affected you. We all wish you well but also wish you had done your job. Please do it now,’’ he said. — Reuters/USA Today