The US President Donald Trump has announced the status of his COVID-19 illness on Saturday stating that he’s free from the respiratory illness which will see him returning to hold big campaign rallies during the final weeks of the presidential race against his Democratic aspirant Joe Biden.
He went on to state that he’s now immune to the disease even though the claim had no evidence backing it up and also this got him a flag from Twitter which is a violation of the social media platform’s rule about misleading information related to COVID-19.
The comments from Trump came a day after his physician said the president had taken a test showing he was no longer infectious. He did not say directly whether Trump had tested negative for COVID-19.
“I passed the highest test, the highest standards, and I’m in great shape,” Trump told Fox News show “Sunday Morning Futures.”
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As of now, Joe Biden seems to be leading him in opinion polls majorly and Trump plans to travel to major states such as Florida today Monday as well as Pennsylvania and Iowa on Tuesday and Wednesday respectively.
The president, who spent three days in the hospital after revealing he had tested positive on Oct. 2, said he was no longer on medications for the coronavirus and was now immune from re-infection.
“It looks like I’m immune for, I don’t know, maybe a long time, or maybe a short time. It could be a lifetime. Nobody really knows,” Trump told Fox.
There hasn’t been any official scientific conclusion on how long people who have recovered from COVID-19 have antibodies and are protected from getting infected by the coronavirus again.
His illness has also caused many to criticize his handling of the pandemic in the US which had caused more than 7.7 million people with 214,000 fatal cases. He had been criticized for not always wearing face mask as well as social distancing practices in the White House. In fact, 11 close aides of the president have tested positive for the disease.
“Now you have a president who doesn’t have to hide in the basement, like his opponent,” Trump said in a shot at Biden, who he has mocked for wearing a mask and keeping a light, socially distanced campaign schedule.
The president did addressed his supported from a White House balcony on Saturday afternoon where he urged the crowd who were largely comprised of Black and Latino supported to help get out the vote. During his communication with the crowd – though from a far distance, he could be seen not wearing face mask and as for the crowd, though most were wearing face masks, they weren’t socially distancing themselves.
Biden was off the campaign trail on Sunday, attending church in his home state of Delaware and addressing a virtual fundraiser where he told donors the country was being “ripped apart” by Trump’s divisive policies.
The president on the other hand had stated that he’s going to definitely reopen the economy amid the pandemic whose number continue to rise in the country. New cases of COVID-19 in the United States hit a two-month high on Friday.
Nationally, the United States is reporting on average 48,000 new cases a day and coronavirus hospitalizations in the Midwest hit a record for a sixth day in a row on Saturday, according to a Reuters analysis.