UNITED States (U.S.) President Donald Trump yesterday faced a fresh backlash for downplaying the severity of coronavirus.
Trump, however, urged Americans not to fear the COVID-19 disease that has killed over 209,000 people in the country and put him in hospital.
He arrived at the White House on Monday in a made-for-television spectacle in which he descended from his Marine One helicopter wearing a white surgical mask only to remove it as he posed, saluting and waving, on the mansion’s South Portico.
“Don’t let it dominate you. Don’t be afraid of it.
“I’m better, and maybe I’m immune, I don’t know,” Trump said in a video after his return from the Walter Reed Medical Centre military hospital outside Washington, where he was treated for the disease.
But, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden criticised Trump for downplaying the severity of coronavirus, saying there is “a lot to be concerned about”.
He said the president should be communicating the “right lesson” on masks and social distancing.
Former first lady Michelle Obama also unleashed on Trump and his allies as “stoking fears about Black and Brown Americans” to win an election and calling the President’s actions “morally wrong” and “racist”.
Mrs. Obama made her closing message to Americans in a campaign video released overnight, less than a month before Election Day.
“But right now, the President and his allies are trying to tap into that frustration and distract from his breathtaking failures by giving folks someone to blame other than them,” she said.
“They’re stoking fears about Black and Brown Americans, lying about how minorities will destroy the suburbs, whipping up violence and intimidation — and they’re pinning it all on what’s been an overwhelmingly peaceful movement for racial solidarity.”
“So what the President is doing is, once again, patently false. It’s morally wrong and yes, it is racist. But that doesn’t mean it won’t work.”
She called this American era a “difficult” and “confusing” time and warned that the President is good at using divisiveness, fear and “spreading lies” as tools to win as she made a plea for empathy as a Black woman.
Trump returned to the White House on Monday night to continue his treatment for coronavirus after a three-night hospital stay.
The president, who is still contagious, removed his mask on the balcony of the White House while posing for pictures.
While he is no longer in hospital, his doctor has said he “may not entirely be out of the woods yet”.
Speaking at an NBC television town hall event in Miami, Florida, on Monday night, Biden said he was “glad” that the president seemed to be recovering well.
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But, he said: “I would hope that the president, having gone through what he went through… would communicate the right lesson to the American people. Masks matter.”
Trump, who was treated by an army of doctors and received experimental treatment, has repeatedly played down a disease that has killed over one million people worldwide and left his own country with the highest death toll in the world.
Trump has repeatedly flouted social-distancing guidelines meant to curb the virus’ spread and ignored his own medical advisers.
He also mocked Biden at last presidential debate for wearing a mask at events, even when he is far from others.
His decision to remove his mask after climbing the staircase to the White House South Portico, a perch that put him at some distance from others and his insistence that Americans should not fear the disease horrified some physicians.
“I was aghast when he said COVID should not be feared,” said William Schaffner, a professor of preventive medicine and infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University Medical Centre in Nashville.
White House spokesman Judd Deere, however, said every precaution was being taken to protect the president and his family. Physical access to Trump would be limited and appropriate protective equipment would be worn by those near him.
Trump’s doctor said the U.S. President is experiencing “no symptoms” of COVID-19 after returning home from hospital.
His physician, Navy Commander Sean Conley, said in a new memo released by the White House this morning that the president’s medical team met with him in the residence yesterday morning.
He said Trump had a “restful first night at home” and that his vital signs remain stable, including his blood oxygen level.
Many aides and confidants have been diagnosed with the disease since Trump’s announcement last week that he had tested positive for it, intensifying scrutiny and criticism of the administration’s handling of the pandemic.
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