Donald Trump appears in public, doctor says he’s no longer a Covid-19 ‘transmission risk’
- US president is no longer contagious,10 days after being stopped in his tracks by Covid-19, his doctor said
- Trump appeared back to his old self as he addressed supporters at the White House
US President Donald Trump’s doctor said the president was no longer at risk of transmitting the coronavirus.
In a memo on Saturday, Dr Sean Conley said Trump met the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention criteria for safely discontinuing isolation and that by “currently recognised standards” he was no longer considered a transmission risk.
Conley, who has been accused of a lack of transparency with the public, said it had been 10 days since Trump first began showing symptoms of the new coronavirus. The president was hospitalised one day later, on October 2.
Tests showed there was “no longer evidence of actively replicating virus”, and that Trump’s viral load was “decreasing”, Conley continued - though he did not state that the president was Covid-free.
The memo follows Trump’s first public appearance since returning to the White House after being treated for the coronavirus. Hundreds of people gathered Saturday afternoon on the South Lawn for a Trump address on his support for law enforcement from a White House balcony.
Trump took off a mask moments after he emerged on the balcony to address the crowd on the lawn below, his first step back onto the public stage with just more than three weeks to go until Election Day. He flouted, once more, the safety recommendations of his own government just days after acknowledging that he was on the brink of “bad things“ from the virus and claiming that his bout with the illness brought him a better understanding of it.
