US President Donald Trump briefly left the hospital, where he was being treated for the novel coronavirus, to greet his supporters by riding past in a motorcade.
After tweeting that he would make a surprise visit, a masked Donald Trump waved from the back seat of a black SUV that crawled in a caravan of vehicles in front of the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, while supporters waving Trump 2020 flags chanted “USA! USA!”
#WATCH | US: President Donald Trump waves at supporters from his car outside Walter Reed National Military Medical Center where he is being treated for COVID-19. pic.twitter.com/p5Fp48C9RB
— ANI (@ANI) October 4, 2020
Donald Trump declared, “I get it,” in a message to the nation before briefly leaving the hospital. “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. “I learned it by really going to school.”
Earlier, the president’s medical team confirmed that his blood oxygen level dropped suddenly twice in recent days. But they also said he could be discharged as early as Monday.
Trump has taken two doses of a five-day course of the intravenous antiviral drug Remdesivir, his doctors said at a briefing on Sunday morning, as well as the steroid dexamethasone, which is used in severe cases.
Trump could return to the White House as early as Monday, where his treatment would continue, the doctors said.
Donald Trump’s condition is improving as well, said the doctors a day after a series of contradictory messages from the White House caused widespread confusion about Trump’s condition.
Dr. Sean P. Conley acknowledged that Trump’s blood oxygen levels had dropped in prior days and that he had run a high fever on Friday morning, admitting that the president’s condition had been worse than previously disclosed. Conley said Trump was improving on Sunday.
The briefing came the day after contradictory messages from the White House caused widespread confusion about the president’s condition.
At least one medical professional inside Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, where Trump has been hospitalized 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. They might get sick. They may die. For political theater. Commanded by Trump to put their lives at risk for theater. This is insanity,” Dr James P. Phillips, an attending physician at Walter Reed, tweeted.
“That Presidential SUV is not only bulletproof, but hermetically sealed against chemical attack. The risk of Covid-19 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,” Dr Phillips said in another tweet.
Every single person in the vehicle during that completely unnecessary Presidential “drive-by” just now has to be quarantined for 14 days. They might get sick. They may die. For political theater. Commanded by Trump to put their lives at risk for theater. This is insanity.
— Dr. James P. Phillips, MD (@DrPhillipsMD) October 4, 2020
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.
— Dr. James P. Phillips, MD (@DrPhillipsMD) October 4, 2020
(With inputs from AP and Reuters)
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