'Feeling great': Trump seeks campaign comeback from COVID-19
WASHINGTON, United States — US President Donald Trump rallied hundreds of cheering supporters for a campaign-style comeback event at the White House Saturday, jumping back into the election race nine days after being stopped in his tracks by Covid-19.
"I am feeling great!" Trump declared as he stepped out to a White House balcony — tugging off his mask to address the crowd below, most of them masked under their red "Make America Great Again" hats, but with little social distancing.
"Get out and vote — and I love you," Trump told supporters, who chanted back "USA" and "Four more years" throughout the address lasting just under 20 minutes.
Badly trailing his 77-year-old Democratic rival Joe Biden in the polls less than four weeks from Election Day, Trump has been counting the days until he can hit the ground again.
The White House doctor announced late Saturday the president was "no longer considered a transmission risk."
Tests showed there was "no longer evidence of actively replicating virus" and that Trump's viral load was "decreasing," Sean Conley said — though he did not state that the president is now virus-free.
Guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say that, for mild or moderate COVID-19 cases, isolation and precautions can be discontinued 10 days after symptom onset, and once patients have been fever free for 24 hours. However, the severity of Trump's illness has not been confirmed.
Saturday's event set the stage for a full-fledged campaign rally Monday in Florida — followed immediately by two more in battleground Pennsylvania Tuesday and Iowa Wednesday.
Biden has slammed as "reckless" Trump's determination to rally huge crowds during the pandemic — but the president has brushed the concerns aside, insisting America has the upper hand against the virus despite a death toll of 213,000 and rising.
"I want you to know our nation is going to defeat this terrible China virus," Trump said.
"It's going to disappear. It is disappearing."
"We are producing powerful therapies and drugs, and we are healing the sick and we are going to recover, and the vaccine is coming out very quickly, in record time as you know."
'The hard truth'
While Trump, 74, has declared himself recovered — and appeared smiling and energetic at the White House — doubts linger over his health, with the president's doctor accused of a lack of transparency with the public.
Trump's biggest liability — overwhelming public dissatisfaction over his handling of the pandemic — has returned as the headline issue of the campaign thanks to his own infection, with cases again on the rise nationwide.
The seven-day average of new daily cases recorded between October 3 and 9 — 47,184 — was the highest since the week of August 13 to 19, according to an AFP analysis of data from Johns Hopkins University.
"Over 213,000 Americans have died from this virus — and the hard truth is it didn't have to happen this way," Biden tweeted Saturday.
For months, taking their cue from a president who mostly shunned and at times mocked the wearing of masks, White House advisors were rarely seen masked inside the West Wing.
Since Trump and his wife Melania tested positive, the mood has shifted and mask wearing was compulsory at Saturday's event.
A similar gathering two weeks ago, to announce the nomination of conservative judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, has been singled out as a likely source of many of the dozens of positive cases since linked to the White House.
Anthony Fauci, the respected director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, has referred to it as a "superspreader event."
Many questions remain unanswered about the White House outbreak, with more than a dozen cases recorded in the president's inner circle, including his spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany.
"When was the president's last negative Covid test?" asked Pete Buttigieg, a former contender for the Democratic presidential nomination, now tipped for a prominent role in a Biden administration should he defeat Trump on November 3.
Biden, vice president under Barack Obama, is currently close to 10 points ahead in national polls with a solid lead in key battlegrounds.
And in the Republican camp, there is increasingly palpable concern about the state of the race.
"If on Election Day people are angry and they've given up hope and they're depressed... I think it could be a terrible election," Senator Ted Cruz warned this week.
"I think we could lose the White House and both houses of Congress, that it could be a bloodbath of Watergate proportions."
US President Donald Trump said in a video released on Twitter Saturday night that he was feeling "much better" in his battle against the coronavirus -- but the next few days would be "the real test."
The 74-year-old assured the public of his progress hours after a source with knowledge of the president's condition had warned his vital signs were worrying, with the next 48 hours critical.
"I came here, wasn't feeling so well," said Trump, who is being treated at Walter Reed military medical center near Washington following his Covid-19 diagnosis.
"I feel much better now, we're working hard to get me all the way back." — AFP
Photo: US President Donald Trump holds a face mask as he speaks during the first presidential debate at the Case Western Reserve University and Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio on September 29, 2020. AFP/Jim Watson
US officials reject Donald Trump's claim that the national COVID-19 death toll of more than 350,000 has been exaggerated, but defend the stumbling campaign to vaccinate millions of Americans.
Some 4.2 million people in the US have received initial doses of the two-dose vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna — far below official predictions of 20 million by the new year.
The president blamed local authorities for the delays, tweeting that "the vaccines are being delivered to the states by the Federal Government far faster than they can be administered!" — AFP
Donald Trump said Sunday his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani has tested positive for COVID-19, the latest member of the US president's inner circle — where mask wearing is rare — to contract the disease.
The 76-year-old former New York City mayor's age puts him in a high-risk group, and the New York Times and ABC reported he was hospitalized on Sunday in Washington as the US faces a record surge in coronavirus cases.
Giuliani's diagnosis comes after he had been crisscrossing the country, leading the president's defiant — and unsuccessful — effort to undo Joe Biden's victory in the November 3 presidential election.
During his travels, Giuliani has been seen frequently without a mask: on Wednesday, he was at the Michigan state assembly in Lansing with his face uncovered for a hearing that lasted more than four hours. — AFP
Two more people close to US President Donald Trump tested positive for the coronavirus, media reports said Monday.
Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson. 69, has contracted the virus, his deputy chief of staff Coalter Baker told NPR.
"He is in good spirits and feels fortunate to have access to effective therapeutics which aid and markedly speed his recovery," Baker said in a statement.
According to ABC television, Carson was briefly treated at Walter Reid military hospital outside Washington DC, where Trump himself was treated for the virus.
Carson had spent Tuesday evening at the White House watching the election results come in.
Another top aide to the president, David Bossie, was also at the White House event and tested positive on Sunday and has been self-isolating at home, NBC news said. — AFP
Joe Biden flayed Donald Trump on Tuesday with accusations the US president has surrendered to a surging pandemic, as the Democrat took his campaign to the Republican stronghold of Georgia one week before the US election.
While the former vice president went on electoral offense, seeking to expand the campaign map and his state-by-state path to victory on November 3, Trump barnstormed the Midwest in a last-gasp bid to shore up states that voted for him in 2016 but which polls show are tilting Biden's way.
And with the campaign narrowing down to its final days, Biden tapped one of his top surrogates, popular former president Barack Obama, to deliver a closing argument for Democrats in Florida, a must-win swing state for Trump if he is to defy the odds and earn reelection. — AFP
US Vice President Mike Pence's chief of staff tested positive for COVID-19 on Saturday, a spokesman said, the latest in a list of figures connected to Donald Trump's administration to do so.
Marc Short began quarantine and was assisting in the contract tracing process, Pence spokesman Devin O'Malley said in a statement.
"Vice President Pence and Mrs. Pence both tested negative for COVID-19 today, and remain in good health," he added. — AFP
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