A White House doctor said Donald Trump was “no longer considered a risk of transmission.” (File)
Washington, United States:
US President Donald Trump declared himself safe from Covid-19 on Sunday as he prepared to return to the election trail in a fight to regain ground against White House rival Joe Biden.
“Looks like I’m immune for, I don’t know, maybe a long time and maybe a little while, it could be a lifetime, nobody really knows, but I’m immune,” Trump said in a statement. interview with Fox News, a day after his doctor claimed he was no longer at risk of transmitting the disease.
“You have a president who is immune … so now you have a president who doesn’t have to hide in a basement like his opponent,” he added – in a jab to Democrat Biden and his much more cautious approach to campaigning in a pandemic.
It is not yet clear to what extent the contraction of Covid-19 confers immunity against future infection, with early studies suggesting a few months while more recent ones have indicated that it may last longer.
While acknowledging that – generally – a person recovering from a viral infection is protected against a new infection, the World Health Organization warned in August: “For COVID-19, we have yet to enough data to confirm whether the antibodies protect, what levels of antibodies are needed, or how long the protection will last. “
During his Fox News phone interview, Trump went on to suggest that his White House rival might be ill himself.
“If you look at Joe, he was coughing horribly yesterday and grabbing his mask, while he was coughing,” Trump said. “And I don’t know what it was, and it didn’t get much publicity.”
The Biden campaign has been posting daily coronavirus tests for their candidate since Trump tested positive on October 1 – taking him to hospital for three nights and derailing his campaign.
There has been less transparency regarding Trump’s state of health, with his medical team repeatedly refusing to say when he last tested negative for the virus. This fueled suspicions that he might not have been tested for several days before his diagnosis.
Trump gathered hundreds of supporters for a White House comeback event on Saturday and is planning back-to-back rallies this week to save his struggling campaign three weeks before the Nov. 3 election.
(Except for the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is posted from a syndicated feed.)
