The Virus Dogs Trump's Campaign

breaking a two month streak without local transmission. The city, located in Shandong Province, found three asymptomatic case is linked to a hospital that treats COVID nineteen patients from abroad. More tests uncovered a cluster of twelve cases so far, making it China's biggest in months. It shows how difficult it is to stamp out the coronavirus in any one country. When outbreaks are flaring in places like India and the

US and rebounding in Europe. Several nations in the Asia Pacific region, like Thailand or New Zealand, have also maintained long stretches of virus free periods, only to see the pathogen rear its head again. New research suggests the coronavirus can remain infectious for weeks on our paper, currency, and

handheld screens, among other places. Scientists at the Australian Center for Disease Preparedness showed it could live on plastic bank notes and glass found on mobile phones for twenty eight days at room tem picture that compares with seventeen day survival for the flu virus. Scientists say the virus is extremely robust and that their research can help them more accurately predict and mitigate the pandemic spread. Finally, the US death rate from coronavirus infections is the highest in the

developed world. That's according to a study of global mortality rates published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Early in the outbreak, the country's mortality rate from COVID nineteen was lower than in many other hard hit countries, including the UK, Spain, and the Netherlands. But as spring turned to summer, the US largely failed to embrace public health policies that have helped other countries reduce their death rates.

More than one hundred thousand fewer Americans would have died if the US had the same mortality rate as the Netherlands. The US leads the world in total coronavirus deaths, with nearly two hundred and fifteen thousand, according to data from Johns Hopkins University and Now for today's main story, President Donald Trump returned to the campaign trail today, a little

over a week after testing positive for the coronavirus. He said he's quote in great shape as he plans a rally in Orlando, Florida, to kick off at least four straight days of political events. Trump's jam packed itinerary shows how much his campaign hopes to reverse polling trends that show him falling further behind Democratic nominee Joe Biden. But as the President prepares to address supporters amid record US deaths from the pandemic, the virus stays with him, both

literally and figuratively. I spoke to Michelle fake Cortez, who wrote in Bloomberg Business Week that Trump's handling of his own infection and the cluster of infections of the White House is a microcosm of the country's overall pandemic response. Today, President Trump is scheduled to hold a rally in Florida, and that's just a little over a week since he announced he had tested positive for COVID nineteen on October two. Is that a remarkably fast timeline or or what are

we looking at here? The CDC does say that people who test positive for coronavirus should isolate themselves for about ten days, that they will be capable of transmitting the virus for a little bit over a week to other people, and so they should, you know, remain by themselves and isolated for that period of time. It's a little bit different with President Trump because of the cocktail of medicines

that he got. There is some thought perhaps the steroids or he was taking could make him infectious for a longer period of time. On the flip side, the doctors have been really tracking him very closely. They've been doing a lot of tests that look at the levels and types of antibodies that he has in his body, and it does look like he does not have virus that's replicating in a way that could be infectious to other people. So it does seem like it's okay for him to

get out there at this point. And speaking of that experimental cocktail, of drugs. It sounds like even if he is not contagious, he still potentially might be feeling effects from the virus. Or is he potentially experiencing any effects

from these treatments. The President could absolutely still be suffering complications from either the virus or the medicines that he took, and in some cases he could be getting benefit from the medicines that he received, a benefit that might not persist once he stops taking them, specifically the decks metha zone,

the steroid that he was given. The other thing that I think is really important to keep in mind here is it seems like the President really did thread the needle when it came to this cocktail of medicines that he received. He falls squarely into the high risk category. He's older, he's obese, he's not physically active, he doesn't

have a good diet. There are other health complications that he has had that should have made him particularly vulnerable, and he seems to have done much much better than the average person in his condition when it comes to coronavirus. Now, the way that they went about that he received this monoclonal antibody from Regeneran that basically was an early start to the immune system. Then he got remdesevie, which is

an anti viral, so that's fighting the virus itself. And then he got the steroid, which calms down any kind of over active response to the virus. So the idea that these medicines were given so closely together and each seemed to be really potent for him is great news for the world that there might be an avenue to actually getting this virus under control. The question is going to be who gets that treatment and is it going

to be like this for everyone? And again, going back to your point earlier, we don't really know how the president is doing. We have gotten some reports from his doctors. We've seen him in public a few times, but certainly we haven't seen him for extended periods of time, and his doctors have not been forthcoming, so we don't really know to what extent he's still suffering from the virus and it's after effects, or if in fact he has

truly recovered. And you raised a great point about perhaps the unique treatment that the president received, to what extent does this differ from, say, a standard treatment for someone who comes in with a positive COVID nineteen test. Doctors believe that the most potent treatment the President Trump received

was the monoclonal antibody from Regeneraan. That therapy is not currently available to anyone outside of clinical trials, with the exception of a handful of patients ten or fewer who have gotten it on some type of a compassionate use basis. So the answer to the question to what extent can the average American get this, the answer is zero. The average American has no access to this product from Regeneration. There are others that are also in development, one from

Eli Lily, one from Astra Zeneca. Those also are not available outside of a clinical trial. There's not that many places where these medicines are being studied, so there's limitations. Not everybody can drive to those hospitals. Once you get to the hospital, you get enrolled in the clinical trial. Half the people get the therapy, half the people get a placebo. So even then you don't know if you're going to get it. So what President Trump got a

hundred percent access to the medicine. Literally no one else in the world has. Obviously, we have seen that the President is very eager to get back onto the campaign trail. But despite say, a scheduled rally and other in person events. This development has actually led to the cancelation of the upcoming debate with Joe Biden. In terms of the health risks that an in person debate could hold, what are the threats of this in person debate format? The risk

from President Trump is likely very low. The thing is is that it's not just President Trump when it comes to these debates, all of these all of these candidates have a whole host of people who are helping them and a whole other group of people who were coming to support them. And it's that expanded group that is the potential threat. We saw with the first debate that President Trump's supporters and his family members came in with

masks on and took their masks off. We know at that period of time they were all in a uniquely vulnerable situation and they were potentially putting other people at risk.

It's that situation that is potentially harmful. President Trump could have infected other people in his family, other of his supporters, others of his helpers, and those people could have been harboring the virus for days or weeks and then turned positive before a debate, and then their presence at the debate stage could be passing the virus along to other people. It also could have worked the opposite way. Just because

we don't know that Joe Biden wasn't was positive. Just because we know that Joe Biden has not been infected with the virus doesn't mean that somebody in his entourage couldn't also be positive. What do you think, if any, is the relationship between President Trump's personal response to having COVID nineteen and how he has handled the pandemic in the US overall. President Trump's personal philosophy is very evident

when you see him speaking almost in any circumstance. He is a person who tends to put a positive spin on things. When he's talking about his own experiences and his own life and what he's hoping to do. He likes to emphasize the positive. He wants to go into a battle, he wants to win. He's looking on the bright side. We know from Bob Woodward's book that from very early on in the pandemic he did not want to take a negative tach. He didn't want to scare people.

He wanted to be calm and reassuring and have a positive outlook, this virus is just going to go away at some point, We're not going to have it. We're all going to get through this. We'll get to the other side of it. All of those things are true. The question is is we have no idea when that's going to be. We might not be through to the other side of it and be done with this virus. We might get through to the other side and realize

it's something we just have to live with. The Other thing that's very consistent about President Trump is he doesn't like bureaucracies. He doesn't like the standard protocols that are in place. And the huge crisis that came out of that because of this pandemic is that the exact way that we would have been able to best handle it is through the efficient and effective and powerful use of government bureaucracies who have been working for decades for this

exact moment. There were processes in place. There are public servants who have been designing ways to combat viral respiratory outbreak for years and years and years, and they knew exactly what to do. But because the President was taking a more optimistic, hopeful approach and an anti bureaucracy approach. It basically cut the process off at the knees of what would have been helpful. So President Trump was hopeful

for himself. He believed that because everyone around him was being tested, that he wasn't vulnerable, that he couldn't get infected. He believed that the virus was not going to stick around. Once it got warm outside, it would go away. All of these hopeful, idealistic and incorrect ideas did ultimately hurt the president and our country. So his hopeful nature for him personally might have might have actually paid off, but for the rest of the country, with over two hundred

thousand deaths, clearly it has not. That was Michelle fake Cortez. And that's it for our show. To day. For coverage of the outbreak from one hundred and twenty bureaus around the world, visit Bloomberg dot com slash coronavirus and if you like the show, please leave us a review and a rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It's the best way to help more listeners find our global reporting. The Prognosis Daily Edition is produced by Tophur Foreheads Jordan Gospoure,

Magnus Henrickson and me Laura Carlson. Today's main story was reported by Michelle fake Cortez. Original music by Leo Sidrian. Our editors are Rick Shine and Francesco Levi. Francesco Levi is Bloomberg's head of podcasts. Thanks for listening.