President says he’s leaving hospital for White House, feeling good
BETHESDA, MD. (AP) — President Donald Trump said Monday he’s leaving the military hospital where he has been treated for COVID-19 and will continue his recovery at the White House. He said he’s feeling good and despite his attack the nation should not be afraid of the virus that has killed more than 209,000 Americans.
Trump’s expected return comes after he has received an exceptionally aggressive course of treatment and a standard of care well above what is available to average Americans. His doctor, Navy Cdr. Sean Conley, said the president would not be fully out of the woods for another week, but he said Trump had “met or exceeded all standard hospital discharge criteria.”
Trump himself made a point of sounding confident. He tweeted, “I will be leaving the great Walter Reed Medical Center today at 6:30 P.M. Feeling really good! Don’t be afraid of Covid. Don’t let it dominate your life. … I feel better than I did 20 years ago!”
Conley was also upbeat at an afternoon briefing and said the president could resume his normal schedule once “there is no evidence of live virus still present.” According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, those with mild to moderate symptoms of COVID-19 can be contagious for as many — and should isolate for at least — 10 days.
Trump’s expected discharge raised new questions about how the administration was going to protect other officials from a disease that remains rampant in the president’s body, and came as the scale of the outbreak at the White House itself is still being uncovered. Press secretary Kayleigh McEnany announced she had tested positive for the virus Monday morning and was entering quarantine.
Conley 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.
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Photo: Gage Skidmore | via Flickr.com/photos/gageskidmore/39815511914 (CC BY-SA 2.0)
