AMERICANS ARE LEARNING TO LIVE WITH COVID-19: TRUMP
Defying critics, US President Donald Trump on Tuesday said Americans were learning to live with COVID-19, a day after returning to the White House for further intensive treatment after being hospitalised with the coronavirus.
Trump, who returned late on Monday after nearly four days at Walter Reed Medical Center outside Washington, was due to receive a fifth transfusion of the antiviral drug remdesivir while being treated with the steroid dexamethasone, normally used only in the most severe cases.
The Republican president, who is running against Democrat Joe Biden in an election four weeks away, has repeatedly played down the disease, which has killed more than 1 million people worldwide. The United States has the world’s highest death toll from the pandemic, with more than 209,000 deaths.
“Many people every year, sometimes over 100,000, and despite the Vaccine, die from the Flu. Are we going to close down our Country? No, we have learned to live with it, just like we are learning to live with Covid, in most populations far less lethal!!!” Trump tweeted on Tuesday.
About 22,000 people are estimated to die from influenza in the 2019-2020 season, according to US government statistics. Even before he contracted COVID-19, Trump acknowledged in taped conversations with a journalist that the disease was deadlier than the flu.
White House physician Dr. Sean Conley has also stressed Trump would have worldclass medical care available around the clock, something many health experts have noted is unavailable to millions of other Americans.
“Don’t let it dominate you. Don’t be afraid of it,” Trump said in a video after his return on Monday night.
“I’m better, and maybe I’m immune - I don’t know,” he added. “Get out there. Be careful.” He returned to the White House in a made-for-television spectacle, descending from his Marine One helicopter wearing a white surgical mask, only to remove it as he posed, saluting and waving, on the mansion’s South Portico.
The Republican president, who is running against Democrat Joe Biden in an election four weeks away, has repeatedly played down the disease, which has killed more than 1 million people worldwide. The United States has the world’s highest death toll from the pandemic, with more than 209,000 deaths