Trump Again Downplays Virus as White House Outbreak Spreads

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that influenza has resulted in far fewer yearly deaths than Trump said — between 12,000 and 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 face-to-face audience.

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 as a precaution.

First lady Melania 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.

Read also: Trump’s Covid-19 Treatment is Regeneron’s Unapproved Antibody Drug

On Tuesday he was to receive his final dose of the antiviral drug remdesivir.

It was not known whether he was still being administered the powerful steroid dexamethasone, which was prescribed Saturday after he suffered a second drop in his blood oxygen levels in as many days.

Dr. Conley said Monday that because of Trump’s unusual level of treatment so early after discovery of his illness he was in “uncharted territory", adding that Trump would not be fully “out of the woods” for another week.

The coronavirus can be unpredictable, and Conley has noted it can become more dangerous as the body responds.

Days seven through 10 can be "the most critical in determining the likely course of this illness”, he said over the weekend.

There were also lingering questions about potential long-term effects to the president — and even when he first came down with the virus.

Conley has repeatedly declined to share results of medical scans of Trump’s lungs, saying he was not at liberty to discuss the information because Trump did not waive doctor-patient confidentiality on the subject. 

(Writers: Zeke Miller, Jill Colvin, Aamer Madhani)

Source: https://apnews.com/article/virus-outbreak-donald-trump-technology-elections-campaigns-50c979b85d8666ca554f3eba6c646fe5