President Donald Trump arrives at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, in Bethesda, Md., Friday, Oct. 2, 2020, on Marine One helicopter after he tested positive for Covid-19. (AP)
US Presidential Elections 2020 LIVE news updates: An election year already defined by a cascade of national crises descended further into chaos Friday, with President Donald Trump quarantined at a military hospital with the coronavirus after consistently playing down the threat.
Democratic challenger Joe Biden took down his attack ads and pressed a bipartisan message in battleground Michigan after he and his wife tested negative. “This cannot be a partisan moment. It must be an American moment. We have to come together as a nation,” Biden declared at a speech in Grand Rapids, warning that the virus “is not going away automatically.”
While Biden vowed to continue his cautious approach to campaigning during the pandemic, the president’s diagnosis injected even greater uncertainty into an election already plagued by crises that have exploded under Trump’s watch: the pandemic, devastating economic fallout and sweeping civil unrest.
According to Trump’s Friday Evening Health Update, President Donald Trump who tested positive for the coronavirus Thursday is “doing very well” and does not require any supplemental oxygen as of now. However, a Remdesivir therapy will be initiated following consultation from specialists, the president’s physician informed adding that “he has completed his first dose and is resting comfortably.”
Meanwhile, the Trump campaign said that all previously announced campaign events involving US President Donald Trump would be moved to a virtual setting or temporarily postponed after he tested positive for COVID-19.The campaign in a statement also said that previously announced events involving members of the Trump family are temporarily postponed, with other events being considered on a case-by-case basis.
President Donald Trump, who was flown to a military hospital for treatment of COVID-19, is in "exceptionally good spirits" and has been "fever free" for the last 24 hours, his doctors said on Saturday.
Col. Sean N Dooley said that President Trump is not on oxygen and is not having difficulty breathing or walking around. "He is in exceptionally good spirits," he said while updating on the president's health.
"We are monitoring him very closely for any evidence of complications from either the coronavirus illness or the therapies that we are prescribing to make him better," CNN quoted him as saying. Dooley said the president's cardiac, kidney and liver functions were all normal this morning. Trump's physician Dr. Sean Conley said the president had a "mild cough and some nasal congestion, fatigue" on Thursday, "all of which are resolving and improving." (PTI)
Vice President Mike Pence in March directed the nation's top disease control agency to use its emergency powers to effectively seal the U.S. borders, overruling the agency's scientists who said there was no evidence the action would slow the coronavirus, according to two former health officials.
The action has so far caused nearly 150,000 children and adults to be expelled from the country. The top Centers for Disease Control and Prevention doctor who oversees these types of orders had refused to comply with a Trump administration directive saying there was no valid public health reason to issue it, according to three people with direct knowledge of the doctor's refusal.
So Pence intervened in early March. The vice president, who had taken over the Trump administration's response to the growing pandemic, called Dr. Robert Redfield, the CDC's director, and told him to use the agency's special legal authority in a pandemic anyway. (AP)
An election year already defined by a cascade of national crises descended further into chaos Friday, with President Donald Trump quarantined at a military hospital with the coronavirus after consistently playing down the threat.
Democratic challenger Joe Biden took down his attack ads and pressed a bipartisan message in battleground Michigan after he and his wife tested negative. "This cannot be a partisan moment. It must be an American moment. We have to come together as a nation," Biden declared at a speech in Grand Rapids, warning that the virus "is not going away automatically."
While Biden vowed to continue his cautious approach to campaigning during the pandemic, the president's diagnosis injected even greater uncertainty into an election already plagued by crises that have exploded under Trump's watch: the pandemic, devastating economic fallout and sweeping civil unrest. With millions of Americans already voting, the country on Friday entered uncharted territory that threatened to rattle global markets and political debates around the world. (AP)
Chinese President Xi Jinping on Saturday wished a speedy recovery to his US counterpart Donald Trump and first lady Melania who have tested positive for coronavirus.
President Trump revealed his diagnosis on Twitter on Friday, with leaders across the globe sending their well wishes.
'Tonight, @FLOTUS and I tested positive for COVID-19. We will begin our quarantine and recovery process immediately. We will get through this TOGETHER!' 74-year-old Trump tweeted, just weeks before the presidential polls.
In a message to Trump, Xi, 67, said that after learning President Trump and Melania have tested positive for COVID-19, he and his wife Peng Liyuan extend sympathy to them and wish them a speedy recovery, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
SIGNS AND SYMPTOMS
Infection causes mild or no symptoms in about 80 per cent of cases. About 15 per cent of people become seriously ill and 5 per cent get critically ill.
Symptoms, when they do occur, usually appear two to 14 days after infection and can include loss of smell or taste, coughing, a sore throat, trouble breathing, fatigue, muscle or body aches, headache, nausea or vomiting, diarrhea and fever. Up to half of patients who are hospitalized don't have a fever when admitted but nearly all develop one.
How people fare varies widely - some seem to be recovering and then suddenly worsen. Pneumonia, often with a specific appearance on X-rays, sometimes develops but complications in virtually every organ of the body have been reported. Doctors also increasingly recognize that some people have long-lasting symptoms.
TRUMP'S RISKS
Older age, being male and having any other health problems increase the chance of severe illness, and Trump has those. At 74, "his age would be the primary risk factor," said Dr. David Banach, an infectious diseases physician at the University of Connecticut's health system.
People ages 65 to 74 are seven times more likely to be hospitalized for COVID-19 than those who are 18 to 29 years old, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The risks rise exponentially at older ages.
Trump also is obese, with a body mass index just past 30. "Obesity is a state of chronic lowered immunity. In other words, you don't respond to vaccines as well, you don't respond to infections as well" as people of normal weight, Poland said. Trump takes a statin drug to lower his cholesterol, and that condition also raises his risk for COVID-19 complications, doctors said. (AP)
President Donald Trump has several strikes against him - age, obesity, elevated cholesterol and being male - that could put him at greater risk of becoming seriously ill from the coronavirus infection he disclosed early Friday.
Trump and first lady Melania Trump, who also tested positive, "are both well at this time" and plan to remain at the White House while recovering and being closely monitored, according to a statement from his physician, Dr. Sean Conley.
A White House official said Friday that Trump was having mild symptoms.
"The odds are far and away that he'll have a mild illness" as most people with the virus do, said Dr. Gregory Poland, an infectious disease specialist at the Mayo Clinic who has no role in Trump's care. But COVID-19 is very unpredictable, he stressed. "We have young people who die. We have nursing home patients, a lot of them, who actually do quite well," Poland said. (AP)
Wearing his signature hoodie and beanie, an earbud casually hanging from one ear, passionate Parkland teen Joaquin Oliver urges his peers to vote for lawmakers who will end gun violence in a new video released Friday. Next month's election would have been his first chance to vote.
The 17-year-old's mannerisms and vernacular "yo, it's me" are shockingly life like, but it is just a mirage - a realistic, almost eerie artificial intelligence re-creation of the teen who was among the 17 killed in the 2018 Valentine's Day massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida, the worst school shooting in history.
From the grave, the teen is now begging his peers to cast the vote that he will never cast. "I've been gone for two years and nothing's changed, bro. People are still getting killed by guns," he implores in the video created by his parents' charity to end gun violence. (AP)
US Vice President Mike Pence, next in line for the Oval Office, tested negative for COVID-19, hours after President Donald Trump announced that he was infected and went into quarantine, Pence's spokesman said on Friday.
'This morning, Vice President Pence and the Second Lady tested negative for COVID-19. Vice President Pence remains in good health and wishes the Trumps well in their recovery,' spokesman Devin O'Malley said on Twitter.
Pence, 61, is scheduled to debate his Democratic rival, Joe Biden's running mate Senator Kamala Harris on Wednesday in Utah.
Former NASA astronaut and retired US Navy captain, Scott Kelly Friday wished US President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump a speedy recovery. Taking to Twitter, Kelly said "Wishing for a speedy recovery for @POTUS, @FLOTUS, the government officials, journalists and all others affected by this most recent COVID-19 outbreak.”
U.S. President Donald Trump was in a military hospital on Saturday for treatment after testing positive for COVID-19, an extraordinary development that upended the presidential race a month before the Nov. 3 election.Roughly 17 hours after he made his diagnosis public, Trump walked slowly from the White House to a waiting helicopter to be taken to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland. He wore a mask and business suit and did not speak to reporters."I think I'm doing very well, but we're going to make sure that things work out," Trump said in a brief video message posted on Twitter
President Donald Trump who tested positive for the coronavirus Thursday is "doing very well" and does not require any supplemental oxygen as of now, according to Trump's Friday Evening Health Update. However, a Remedesivir therapy will be initiated following consultation from specialists, the president's physician informed adding that "he has completed his first dose and is resting comfortably.”
Democratic Presidential candidate Joe Biden Friday said that Donald Trump testing positive is a 'bracing reminder' to take Covid-19 seriously. 'This is not a matter of politics. It's a bracing reminder to all of us that we have to take this virus seriously. It's not going away automatically. We have to do our part to be responsible,' he said.
In a Michigan campaign rally, Biden wished for the speedy recovery of the president and first lady. "Sending my prayers (for) health and safety of the first lady and the president of the United States after they tested positive for COVID-19. My wife Jill and I pray that they will make a quick and full recovery,"he said.
News Friday that President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump had tested positive for COVID-19 sparked an explosion of rumours, misinformation and conspiracy theories that in a matter of hours littered the social media feeds of many Americans.
Tweets shared thousands of times claimed Democrats might have somehow intentionally infected the president with the coronavirus during the debates.
Others speculated in Facebook posts that maybe the president was faking his illness. And the news also ignited constant conjecture among QAnon followers, who peddle a baseless belief that Trump is a warrior against a secret network of government officials and celebrities that they falsely claim is running a child trafficking ring.
In the final weeks of the presidential campaign, Trump's COVID-19 diagnosis was swept into an online vortex of coronavirus misinformation and the falsehoods swirling around this polarizing election. (AP)
Assistant and Senior Counselor to the President, Kellyanne Conway Friday tested positive for the coronavirus. In a tweet posted on Friday night, Conway said, "Tonight I tested positive for COVID-19. My symptoms are mild (light cough) and I’m feeling fine. I have begun a quarantine process in consultation with physicians. As always, my heart is with everyone affected by this global pandemic."
After testing Covid positive, US President Donald Trump arrives at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.
A helicopter carrying President Donald Trump to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center landed on Friday at the facility, where the president will be treated for the coronavirus. According to Reuters, the president, who walked to the helicopter as he left the White House, said nothing to waiting reporters.
"I want to thank everybody for the tremendous support. I'm going to Walter Reed hospital. I think I am doing very well but we are going to make sure that things work out. The first lady is doing very well," US President Donald Trump said in a video message on Saturday.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un sent a consolation letter to President Donald Trump on the news he had contracted the coronavirus, North Korean state media said on Saturday. Kim said he 'sincerely hopes' Trump and his wife will recover as soon as possible, KCNA reported.
After being diagnosed with COVID-19, US President Trump departs the White House for a multi-day stay at Walter Reed Medical Center.
Democrat Joe Biden's presidential campaign is temporarily taking down negative ads regarding President Donald Trump after his diagnosis with the novel coronavirus, a person familiar with the matter told news agency Reuters.