President Donald Trump said on Twitter that he’ll leave Walter Reed hospital Monday evening after being treated for COVID-19, calling on Americans not to fear the novel coronavirus.
“Don’t let it dominate your life,” Trump tweeted Monday afternoon. “We have developed, under the Trump Administration, some really great drugs & knowledge. I feel better than I did 20 years ago!”
The virus has infected more than 7.4 million Americans and has killed more than 210,000 since February, including 475 on Sunday, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
“Over the past 24 hours, the president has continued to improve. He’s met or exceeded all hospital discharge criteria,” White House physician Sean Conley said at a briefing after Trump’s announcement.
Trump “may not entirely be out of the woods” but the rest of his care can safely be performed at the White House, Conley said.
The president will receive a fourth dose of an antiviral drug, Remdesivir, at Walter Reed before he’s discharged and a fifth dose at the White House, his medical team said.
“He’s returning to a facility, the White House medical unit, that’s staffed 24-7,” Conley said. “Every day a patient stays in the hospital unnecessarily is a risk to themselves.”
It isn’t clear how long Trump will remain isolated at the White House before resuming campaign travel. Conley said coronavirus patients can stop shedding the virus in as few as five days after diagnosis, and that Trump would be monitored to determine when he is no longer infectious.
But Conley conceded that the course of Trump’s illness could still take a turn. “We all remain cautiously optimistic and on guard because we’re in a bit of uncharted territory when it comes to a patient that received the therapies he has so early in the course,” he said.
“We’re looking to this weekend,” Conley added. “If we can get through to Monday with him remaining the same or improving, better yet, then we will all take that final deep sigh of relief.”
Trump has received doses of two other powerful medicines, including an experimental “antibody cocktail” and a steroid, dexamethasone, usually used to combat inflammation in people with more severe cases of COVID-19.
One of Trump’s doctors read off a list of the president’s vital signs as of this morning, including his temperature, blood pressure, respiratory rate, heart rate and blood-oxygen saturation level. His medical team has not previously released that data to the public.
But Conley declined to discuss the results of scans of Trump’s lungs, citing federal health privacy law.
Trump has been in the hospital since Friday evening, after announcing early that morning he’d tested positive for the virus. He was briefly administered supplemental oxygen at the White House before traveling to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, Conley said Sunday.
White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows said earlier Monday that a decision on Trump’s release from the hospital would be made after consultations with medical staff.
The White House hadn’t provided any update on Trump’s health in more than 24 hours, and before announcing he’d leave the hospital, Trump himself hadn’t said anything about his condition on Twitter since shortly after 5 p.m. Sunday.
White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany meanwhile said Monday she tested positive for the novel coronavirus, adding her to a growing list of infected Trump associates that includes First Lady Melania Trump, at least two White House aides who travel with the president and three Republican senators.
McEnany said she is not experiencing symptons of Covid-19, the disease caused by the virus.
Trump’s health improved over the weekend, said the people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified discussing his condition. The president has been eager to leave the hospital.
“We have further evaluations and consultations that have to take place between the president and his medical team,” Meadows said Monday morning on Fox News. “It’s going to be, at the earliest, this afternoon,” he said of the decision on Trump’s possible discharge.
With less than a month until Election Day, Trump’s hospitalization has jolted the presidential campaign, forcing him to scrap rallies and other events as polls show him trailing Joe Biden nationally and in swing states. His campaign has launched “Operation MAGA,” referring to his Make America Great Again slogan, to flood the campaign trail with top surrogates like Vice President Mike Pence, Trump’s family and others.
Discussion of Trump’s release comes after a weekend of mixed signals from Conley, who on Sunday disclosed for the first time that the president had been given supplemental oxygen and received a medication that’s typically used in more severe Covid-19 patients.
Asked why he didn’t disclose during Saturday’s briefing that Trump had received oxygen despite repeated questions about it, Conley said, “I was trying to reflect the upbeat attitude” of the team and the president.
Trump was hospitalized Friday evening after recording a fever and receiving supplemental oxygen that day. He’d been diagnosed late Thursday, after a close aide, Hope Hicks, also tested positive for the virus. Trump has since been given three different types of therapeutic drugs, including one typically used in more serious cases, but his doctors have said the president is improving and could be released as early as Monday.
Meadows said Monday that the president continued to improve overnight, after he made his surprise outing on Sunday, waving to supporters gathered outside from his motorcade. Trump on Monday resumed his campaign via Twitter, with a series of posts urging supporters to vote and reminding them that today is the last day to register in states including Florida and Arizona.
“We’re still optimistic that, based on his unbelievable progress,” Trump will be released, Meadows said. “Obviously this is an important day,” he said. “The president continues to improve and is ready to get back to a normal work schedule.”
The president first tested positive after he returned from a fundraiser at his New Jersey golf resort on Thursday, McEnany told reporters on Sunday evening. Trump made an appearance on Fox News on Thursday night before disclosing on Twitter shortly after midnight on Friday that he had tested positive.
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy on Monday criticized Trump’s attendance on Thursday at a fundraiser at his Bedminster golf resort in the state, saying it ought to have been canceled. The president went to the event despite knowing Hicks had tested positive.
“The thing that should have happened is that nobody should have come to New Jersey. That trip should have been canceled,” Murphy said on CBS’s “This Morning.” He said separately on CNN that “Bedminster is a chapter in a long book” about the consequences of flouting social distancing and masking.
“I hope it’s a lesson that now we’ve all learned,” Murphy said.
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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