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Donald Trump vows to ‘make China pay’ for coronavirus pandemic
- Covid-19 infection was ‘a blessing from God’, US president says in video shot outside White House
- Stanford doctor calls his remarks ‘shocking’
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US President Donald Trump, appearing at the White House for the first time since he returned from hospital on Monday night, vowed to “make China pay” for damage caused by the coronavirus pandemic and called his infection “a blessing from God”.
Speaking effusively about the medications that made him feel “great” – in particular an experimental antibody therapy known as REGN-COV2 developed by American biotechnology company Regeneron – Trump said in a video posted to Twitter that he wanted to speed up availability of the drug for Covid-19 patients.
“I want to get to you what I got and I’m going to make it free,” Trump said.
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“It wasn’t your fault that this happened, it was China’s fault, and China is going to pay a big price [for] what they’ve done to this country. China’s going to pay a big price, what they’ve done to the world. This was China’s fault.
“I feel, like, perfect, so I think this was a blessing from God that I caught it,” he said. “This was a blessing in disguise.”
Trump received the antibody cocktail before he was admitted to the Walter Reed National Military Medical Centre last week, when he developed a fever and other symptoms related to his Covid-19 infection. During Trump’s three days in the facility, he was also given multiple doses of the antiviral drug, Remdesivir and a steroid dexamethasone, usually used to treat inflammation in people who have severe cases of Covid-19.
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