‘This is insanity’: Doctors slam Trump’s drive to greet supporters outside Walter Reed hospital

LONDON — President Donald Trump on Sunday briefly ventured exterior Walter Reed hospital in a motorcade to greet cheering supporters, a transfer that medical doctors have condemned for flagrantly disregarding precautions designed to comprise the unfold of the coronavirus.

Trump, 74, has launched a sequence of movies over the weekend to attempt to reassure voters that he’s recovering after testing constructive for Covid-19.

“It has been a really attention-grabbing journey. I’ve discovered rather a lot about Covid,” Trump stated in a video posted through Twitter on Sunday. The president additionally prompt he would “pay a little bit shock to a few of the nice patriots that we have now out on the road.”

Shortly thereafter, the presidential motorcade drove by the perimeter of the Walter Reed Nationwide Medical Heart, with Trump seen by way of the window of an SUV carrying a face overlaying and waving to supporters.

Trump has repeatedly downplayed the specter of the pandemic, criticizing Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden as just lately as final week for carrying a protecting masks, even because the virus has contaminated hundreds of thousands of individuals and resulted within the deaths of greater than 200,000 People.

“Each single individual within the automobile throughout that fully pointless Presidential ‘drive-by’ simply now needs to be quarantined for 14 days. They may get sick. They might die. For political theater,” James Phillips, physician of emergency drugs at George Washington College, and an attending doctor at Walter Reed hospital, stated through Twitter on Sunday.

“Commanded by Trump to place their lives in danger for theater. That is madness,” he stated.

In a second tweet, Phillips added the danger of Covid-19 transmission contained in the automobile was “as excessive because it will get exterior of medical procedures,” saying the presidential SUV was not solely bullet proof however hermetically sealed towards chemical assault.

“The irresponsibility is astounding. My ideas are with the Secret Service compelled to play,” Phillips stated.

In response to the criticism, White Home spokesman Judd Deere told the Associated Press that Trump’s journey exterior the hospital “was cleared by the medical group as protected to do.”

Deere added precautions had been taken, together with the usage of private protecting tools, to guard the president, White Home officers and Secret Service brokers.

The president’s medical doctors have stated Trump’s well being has been bettering, even touting a possible return to the White Home as quickly as Monday.

Nonetheless, the White Home medical group has additionally reported the president’s blood oxygen degree had twice dropped all of a sudden in current days, and he’s being handled with a steroid sometimes advisable for extreme Covid-19 circumstances.

First woman Melania Trump, 50, who has additionally examined constructive for the coronavirus, wouldn’t go away the White Home to go to her husband on the hospital, NBC News reported on Monday, citing a White Home official.

The official stated the primary woman would keep on the residence to keep away from exposing Secret Service brokers that will drive her to Walter Reed hospital and the medical employees who would stroll her as much as the president.

“I am not that involved in regards to the pleasure journey by way of his personal well being. If he actually was steady at this time, which, by all accounts he was, his oxygen ranges had been OK, then the truth that he is out and about for 10 minutes isn’t a giant deal,” Robert Wachter, the chair of the division of medication on the College of California, advised CNBC’s “Squawk Field Europe” on Monday.

“What I’m involved about is that he sits in a hermetically sealed Secret Service van … together with, I feel, eight or 9 Secret Service brokers whereas he is actively infectious. The Secret Service brokers take a vow to guard him, however they do not take a vow to be protected against him and I feel he’s placing them at completely pointless danger,” Wachter stated.

“By taking a pleasure journey exterior Walter Reed the president is putting his Secret Service element at grave danger,” Jonathan Reiner, professor of medication and surgical procedure at George Washington College college of medication and well being companies, stated through Twitter on Sunday.

“Within the hospital once we go into shut contact with a COVID affected person we costume in full PPE: Robe, gloves, N95, eye safety, hat. That is the peak of irresponsibility,” Reiner stated.

For Michael Baker, an epidemiologist on the College of Otago in Wellington, New Zealand, Trump’s tour “seems reckless from each a medical and public well being perspective,” he advised CNBC through e-mail. “A affected person who’s sick sufficient to be admitted to hospital and handled with robust drugs like dexamethasone shouldn’t be leaving hospital for a non-essential drive previous to their discharge.”

White Home doctor Dr. Sean Conley stated over the weekend that Trump’s medical group had begun treating the president with dexamethasone, a steroid that has shown promise for critically ill patients but may cause harm to those with less severe cases of Covid-19.

“Touring in a automobile with a number of employees members whereas nonetheless in isolation additionally poses a danger of infecting these different uncovered passengers. There was no apparent justification for this motion,” Baker stated.

Thus far, the U.S. has recorded greater than 7.Four million circumstances of the coronavirus, with 209,725 associated deaths, in keeping with knowledge compiled by Johns Hopkins College.