President, still contagious, back to downplaying virus
Biden says Fla. debate should not happen if Trump is infectious
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump, said to be making progress in his recovery from COVID-19, tweeted his eagerness to return to the campaign trail Tuesday even as the outbreak that has killed more than 210,000 Americans reached ever more widely into the upper echelons of the U.S. government.
As Trump convalesced out of sight in the White House, the administration defended the protections it has put in place to protect the staff working there to treat and support him.
Trump again publicly played down the virus on Twitter after his return from a three-day hospitalization, though even more aides tested positive, including one of his closest advisers, Stephen Miller.
Miller, a top policy adviser and Trump speechwriter, has been an architect of the president’s “America First” foreign policy and restrictive immigration measures. Miller’s wife, Katie Miller, who serves as communications director to Vice President Mike Pence, had the virus earlier this year. She had been in Salt Lake City with Pence where he is preparing to debate Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris, but she left as soon as she found out about her husband’s diagnosis, officials said. She tested negative on Tuesday.
Trump’s doctor, Navy Cmdr. Sean Conley, said in a letter that the president had a “restful” night at the White House and “reports no symptoms.”
Meanwhile, Trump was grappling with his next political steps four weeks from Election Day. Anxious to project strength, Trump, who is still contagious with the virus, tweeted that he was planning to attend next week’s debate with Democrat Joe Biden in Miami and “It will be great!”
But Biden, for his part, said he a n d Tr u mp “shouldn’t have a debate” as long as the president remains COVID-19 positive.
Biden told reporters in Pennsylvania that he’s “looking forward to being able to debate him” but said
“we’re going to have to follow very strict guidelines.”
Trump on Monday made clear that he has little intention of abiding by best c ontainment practi c es, when he removed his mask before entering the White House after his discharge from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. Waiting aides were visible when he entered the Blue Room without a face covering.
Tr u mp ’ s attitude alarmed infectious disease experts.
Republican Sen. Susan Co l l i n s s a i d Tu e s d a y, “When I saw him on the balcony of t he White House, taking off his mask, I couldn’t help but think that he sent the wrong signal, given that he’s infected with COVID-19 and that there are many people in his immediate circle who have the virus.”
Trump, for his part, falsely suggested that the virus was akin to the seasonal flu. “Many people every year, sometimes over 100,000, and despite the Vaccine, die from the Flu,” he tweeted. “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!!!”
COVID-19 has already proven to be a more potent killer, particularly among older populations, than seasonal flu, and has shown indications of having longterm impacts on the health of younger people it infects. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that influenza has resulted in far fewer yearly deaths than Trump said — 12,000 to 61,000 annually since 2010.
Trump was working out of makeshift office space on the ground floor of the White House residence, in close proximity to the White House Medical
Unit’s office suite, with only a few aides granted a faceto-face audience with the president. The West Wing was largely vacant, as a number of Trump’s aides were either sick or quarantining after exposure to people infected with the virus, or otherwise working remotely.
First l a d y Me l a n i a Trump was isolating upstairs in the White House.
On Tuesday, her office released a memo outlining extensive health and safety precautions that have been put in place in the executive residence, including adopting hospital-grade disinfection policies, encouraging “maximum teleworking ”
and installing additional sanitization and filtration systems. Residence staff in direct contact with the first family are tested daily and support staff are tested every 48 hours. And since the president and Mrs. Trump tested positive, staff have been wearing “full PPE.”
Despite Trump’s upbeat talk about the disease, his own treatment has been far from typical, as his doctors rushed him onto experimental antiviral drugs and prescribed an aggressive course of steroids that would be unavailable to the average patient.
On Tuesday he was to receive his final dose of the antiviral drug remdesivir.