What Trump's Diagnosis Means

here's what else happened in virus news today. US job gains slowed in September, and many Americans quit looking for work. It's a sign that the economic recovery is slowing down. The virus continues to rage, and neither a vaccine nor a fresh round of government aid are expected soon. The economy added six hundred and sixty one thousand new jobs. Economists had forecast a gain of eight hundred and fifty nine thousand. The unemployment rate fell slightly to seven point

nine percent, but labor force participation also fell. US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said negotiations a new stimulus with the White House will press ahead, and that Trump's COVID nineteen diagnosis might change the tenor of the talks by emphasizing the seriousness of the pandemic. Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Stephen Manuchin exchanged proposals on a virus relief package Thursday night and spoke by telephone on Friday, but it was unclear

whether that included discussion about the stimulus. The Speaker and other Democrats have accused Senate Republicans and the White House of not recognizing the stint of damage that the coronavirus pandemic has caused and how big a threat remains. On MSNBC Today, Pelosi said, quote, this kind of changes the dynamic. Finally, astra Zenica's clinical trial for its COVID nineteen vaccine has resumed in Japan, adding to earlier restarts around the world.

According to a statement from the drug maker, regulators have deemed trials to be safe after a participant became ill last month, triggering a voluntary pause. According to astra Zenica, tests have restarted now in the UK, Brazil, South Africa, and India. The Food and Drug Administration has yet to make a decision regarding the resumption of a US based trial.

And now, for today's main story, President Donald Trump's diagnosis of coronavirus has raised questions about everything from the Supreme Court nomination process, to the possibility of future presidential debates, and of course, the unprecedented possibility of a candidate being removed from the ticket this late in an election year, with so many questions and so few answers, I spoke to Drew Armstrong, Senior editor for Healthcare and Healthcare reporter

Michelle fake Cortets to discuss what we know and still don't know about what happens next. Michelle, I was wondering if you might just very briefly sketch a timeline for us in terms of how we discovered that President Trump and the First Lady had tested positive for coronavirus. President Trump learned early on Thursday that his close advisor Hope Hicks,

had tested positive for coronavirus. Now you'll remember that everyone in the White House is tested every single day for coronavirus to make sure that they are not going to be exposing President Trump to the pathogen. In this particular case, Hope Hicks tested negative early on Wednesday, and then Wednesday evening, after a rally in Minnesota, she started feeling unwell and

she isolated herself on Air Force One. On Thursday morning, the President learned that Hicks had tested positive, and he himself then got tested rather than quarantining for the rest of the day. However, he did continue with his activities that included a rally and a fundraiser in New Jersey on Thursday night. Later that evening, he found out that he also had tested positive, along with his wife, First

Lady Milania Trump. And in terms of the gap between when we know that he was perhaps first exposed to the virus and his positive test result, he was still quite active, and he was at several events and in contact with numerous people. Do we know or have any idea about how many people he may have exposed to this virus. I think that's one of the things that the White House is trying to figure out right now.

We've obviously today seen news headline after news headline about other officials who have tested negative, and a handful that have tested positive who've been in contact either with Trump with other people affiliated with the administration. Senator Mike Lee of Utah, I think it was just announced has tested positive.

I'm sure that we'll see more of these going forward, you know, I think it's worth keeping in mind with how the White House protects the President and kind of safeguards UH staff in the White House, they rely very heavily on testing as opposed to mask wearing. Um, you know, and I think the problem with that is that tests are very very good at picking up infections that have

already happened. Um, there don't themselves prevent infections like social distancing and mask wearing and things like that, which can be quite effective in doing so. So it means that even though you catch infections early on and stop the spread that they could cause from getting worse or spreading to more and more people, it's really more of a

limiting effect than a fully preventative one. And just in terms of the test results coming back, is it too early to tell just how many people may have been exposed. It's almost certainly too early to know for sure how many people may actually develop this In terms of I think one of the things I want to draw distinction between you mentioned the word exposed. When public health workers do contact tracing, which is exactly what's going to be going on at the White House right now, exposures what

they're looking for. You know, you're just looking to see were you around somebody who had the disease. Just being exposed doesn't mean you're going to get infected. Testing is what's going to pick up the actual infections themselves, but it can take a little while for the testing to

actually find those infections. Remember, people get more and more virus in their system as an infection grows, and that's when they begin to become something attic, which is another way of noticing affection to trigger a reason for people to go and get a test. And so it may be that someone who was just exposed and doesn't have an infection that's really taken hold, they might not have enough virus for test to be able to detect yet um.

And it may be that they tested they were exposed, they test negative early on, and then later they do test positive. So just because we're seeing these headlines about people uh testing negative for the virus today doesn't mean that they're necessarily going to test negative for it tomorrow or in the coming case. And Michelle, I was wondering if you might go into just what we can know so far about what President Trump is experiencing with regard

to the virus. Obviously, disinfection was caught very very early, so he's showing some mild symptoms. At this point, we don't know what the definition of mild is, and I have a feeling that that's going to be a conversation we're all going to be having quite a lot in the coming days. But we do know that some people

pro rests and other people don't. So for the next four to five days, doctors are telling me it's going to be really critical to keep an eye on the president to determine whether or not he is showing signs of fever, whether he is showing any issues with some early signs of breathing difficulty, whether or not he is struggling with fatigue and just feeling unwell, and it could progress,

but we won't know for a couple of days. And let's look at some of the more general risk factors for President Trump in terms of his age and overall health. I mean, how are those potentially affecting his his experience of the virus. President Trump is absolutely in a higher risk group. He's not only older, he also is overweight, and he has some other signs of potential heart issues, particularly when it comes to high cholesterol levels. On the

other hand, he has been pretty healthy in general. He doesn't have other issues like any active heart problems, any blood clotting problems. As a general rule, he is a healthy He's a healthy guy. So most people, even in the high risk groups, do survive this virus. Of course, President Trump is not the first world leader to have tested positive for the virus. We think of, of course,

Brazilian President Billsonaro and UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Is there anything we can take from the other experiences of coronavirus by world leaders? I think it's really hard to figure this out. I mean, those are you know, it's easy to lump those three in together because obviously all three of them, UM, at some point or another work. Uh. It was not that they weren't taking the virus particularly seriously. UM. But the politics of each of those countries have meaningful differences,

and how they communicate about virus has meaningful differences. And I think that it's a bit it's a bit difficult to draw two to brush across what that tells us, But it does tell us that if you don't take this thing seriously, you do raise your risk of being infected. UM. I think it is certainly telling that the three of them did become UM infected UM, whereas other world leaders have not. We are, of course, only a few weeks out from the election. What does this positive test result

mean for Trump's campaign trail? Well, obviously, you know, we are about a month away from the from election day. Many people are voting now. I think it's also worth noting that, you know, the pandemic and the virus has been a huge issue in this campaign and particularly Trump's response to it, and he has repeatedly played down the severity of the virus UM. If you look at his

campaign rallies, people don't wear masks. There's certainly been some controversy about the debate earlier this week where members of the Trump campaign were at the debate we're not wearing masks, against the advice of the Cleveland clinic that was running it. And so there is a moment here that shows that, hey, he can in fact be infected. Now. I think, you know, one of the things that people may take away from this is going to depend on how severe his case is.

And it's sort of grimm to think about that, but you know, if he comes out of this with a very mild case and comes out and then says, hey, this was no big deal. Then some of his supporters and other people are in the country may take a very different lesson away from that. So I think this is something that politically and from a public health standpoint, really has yet to play out, and we're going to find more about it in the coming days and beyond

the election. We're also in a full scale rush for a vaccine. We're also waiting on another potential stimulus package. How will President Trump's new COVID status potentially affect both or either of these, Yes, certainly. I mean, you know, Washington is all about meetings, FaceTime, getting things done. Obviously a tremendous amount of business is being conducted just like

everyone else over resume and over phone right now. But you know, I think it's this is certainly an event that has disrupted just about everything going on um and it's gonna it is gonna slow things down, is going to cause people to rethink their political calculus about one thing or another. I mean, you know, anything that takes attention off of the task at hand is is a bad thing for the momentum of getting those things done, whether they be a Supreme Court domination, a stimulus package

or something else. And finally, is it possible that Trump having COVID will significantly affect how Americans will vote in the upcoming election. I think it's really hard to know how this is going to affect the election. Um. I think it is certainly going to weigh on how people see Trump's response to the virus, which obviously is a huge, huge, huge issue. And we're seeing the virus effect everything from you mail in voting and absentee voting to fears about

in person voting. So I think a lot of those effects have already played out. Um. And I think the reality is that, you know, until we know how the patient in chief's illness place out, we're not gonna necessarily know the full political implications of this, but it's going to be very interesting to watch over the coming weeks. That was Drew Armstrong and Michelle fake Ortez and that's

it for our show today. For coverage of the outbreak from one and twenty beaus 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 Topher foreheads Jordan Gaspore, Magnus Hendrickson, and me Laura Carlson. Today's main story was reported by Drew Armstrong

and Michelle fake Cortez. Original music by Leo sidron Our. Editors are Rick Shine and Francesco Levi. Francesco Levie is Bloomberg's head of podcasts. Thanks for listening, m HM