Trump ends up in hospital with COVID
U.S. President Donald Trump was hospitalized as a "precautionary measure" on Friday afternoon, just 18 hours after being diagnosed positive for COVID-19 and experiencing mild symptoms of the disease.
Friday was a frantic day in Washington, with rumours about Trump's health and tracking of his recent contacts, such as Democrat Joe Biden, who announced that he had tested negative. In the afternoon and almost by surprise, the president was transferred by helicopter to Walter Reed military hospital in Maryland, where he will remain in hospital indefinitely, performing his duties from the presidential offices of the medical centre.
Minutes earlier Trump had walked in front of the television cameras to the White House garden to take the helicopter that has taken him to the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, in what has been his first public appearance after his positive coronavirus was confirmed last night.
Trump left the presidential mansion wearing a mask, waving to the cameras and raising his thumb.
Earlier, White House spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany had reported that the 74-year-old president was to be moved to the hospital in Bethesda, Maryland, outside the US capital, for a few days as a "precaution".
"President Trump remains in good spirits, has mild symptoms and has been working throughout the day. As a precaution and on the recommendation of his doctor and experts, the president will be working from the presidential offices of (hospital) Walter Reed for the next few days," McEnany said.
During the day, Trump received from his presidential physician, Sean Conley, an eight-gram dose of the experimental antibody cocktail from the pharmaceutical company Regeneron known as REGN-COV2, however, already at Walter Reed he started therapy with the antiviral Remdesivir.
Remdesivir is one of the few drugs that have proved useful against COVID-19, and in June the United States took over its entire production from the US company Gilead, in a move that drew criticism from other countries.
Conley has acknowledged that Trump is feeling fatigue, while the US media has reported that the president has had a fever all day. Prior to Trump's and First Lady Melania's positives, Hope Hicks's was known, but this Friday there have been reports of other infections in the presidential environment that may have occurred several days ago, such as Senators Mike Lee and Thom Tillis.
Former advisor Kellyanne Conway, Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien, Republican National Committee Chairman Ronna McDaniel, and University of Notre Dame President John I. Jenkins have also tested positive. Lee, Tillis, Conway and Jenkins coincided Saturday at the White House in the presentation of Trump's Supreme Court nominee, Amy Coney Barrett, a ceremony in which most of the attendees were not wearing masks.
In addition, the moderator of Tuesday's presidential debate, Chris Wallace, revealed that Trump did not undergo the coronavirus test as stipulated because he did not arrive at the event with enough time.
His rival in the elections, the Democrat Joe Biden, gave a negative result to the test on Friday, in response to Trump's positive result. In addition, his campaign withdrew all the negative election ads against the president.
With exactly one month to go before the presidential elections, the positive news and the subsequent hospitalization have forced Trump to suspend or postpone his campaign events, starting with the rally he had planned for this Friday night in Florida.
Nor will his campaign manager, Stepien, be able to coordinate electoral strategies on the ground as he has also contracted the disease, which has already claimed the lives of at least 208,695 people in the United States.
