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Coronavirus USA live updates: Trump hospitalised, cases and stimulus checks | latest news


Trump latest: headlines

- Doctor suggests president could return to White House on Monday

- Trump has been widely criticised for a drive-by past supporters outside Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, for putting his security service detail at risk, with the President presumably still highly infectious. 

- Trump's doctor addresses questions over his apparent evasion of questions on Saturday

- General feeling is that Trump's condition is slowly improving although there are expected ups and downs

US coronavirus latest: 23:00 PT on Sunday 4 October / 02:00 ET on Monday 5 October (08:00 CEST)

Latest figures published by Johns Hopkins University.

Worldwide

Cases: 35,157,350
Deaths: 1,037,075
Recoveries: 24,505,898

US

Cases: 7,417,845
Deaths: 209,721
Recoveries: 2,911,699

Coronavirus articles





Trump's medical status unclear as doctors say he could be discharged today

U.S. President Donald Trump could be discharged from the hospital where he is being treated for Covid-19 later today, according to his doctors, although his condition remains unclear and outside experts warn that his case could be severe.

Sequestered at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center outside Washington since Friday, Trump has released a series of videos in an effort to reassure the public that he is recovering from a pandemic that has infected over 7.4 million Americans and killed more than 209,000. "It's a very interesting journey. I learned a lot about COVID," he said in a video posted to Twitter on Sunday.

About 65% of Americans said Trump would not have been infected had he taken the virus more seriously. Trump's doctors have said his health is improving and he could be sent back to the White House as soon as Monday. Yet they are treating Trump, 74, with a steroid, dexmethasonethat is normally used only in the most severe cases. He is also just two days into a five-day course of an intravenous antiviral drug, remdesivir.

Dr. Sean P. Conley, the White House physician, said on Sunday that Trump's condition had been worse than he had previously admitted. Conley said Trump had run a high fever on Friday morning and he had been given supplemental oxygen after his blood oxygen levels had dropped.

Doctors not involved in Trump's treatment said they suspected his condition might be worse than Conley let on. As an overweight, elderly man, Trump is in a category that is more likely to develop severe complications or die from the disease.

Trump has consistently downplayed the risks of the pandemic since it first emerged this year, and he has repeatedly flouted social-distancing guidelines meant to curb its spread. 

Why was Trump given dexamethasone?

Trump's doctors have confirmed he was given dexamethasone, a steroid that the UK Recovery trial has shown to be beneficial for pretty sick Covid-19 patients. Generally, the steroid is only given to patients who have been ill for at least a week and who have low levels of blood oxygen, effectively going into respiratory failure.

Doctors have said that the announcement that Trump was given the steroid leads to one of two conclusions: “Either he is sicker than they have let on and clearly warrants dexamethasone, or he’s not so sick, and therefore putting him on dexamethasone is irresponsible," according to Nicholas Christakis, a physician and sociologist at Yale University, as reported in the Guardian. 

 

Trump announcing he's about to go for a drive, while likely highly infectious

The framing of this from the President - "I'm about to make a little surprise visit" - is very odd. It doesn't really fit well with more than 200,000 people in the country having died and many more badly affected by the disease.

He also says he "learnt a lot about covid by really going to school" and that he "gets it", after having been infected with it. The problem is that as leader of the country he didn't need to have the disease to "get it" - he had experts telling him this was going to kill many thousands of Americans, but decided to downplay the risks and cast scorn on measures such as mask wearing that would protect citizens, all for political ends.

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