At the time of reporting, 19 percent of respondents said they did believe the administration has been transparent, while four percent said they did not know. More than 600 people have so far voted in the poll, which remained open at time of publication.
Concerns remain over Donald Trump’s condition and the potential risks involved in his return to the White House after being discharged from the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on Monday.
Though Trump “may not entirely be out of the woods yet,” the president was discharged from the hospital as he “met or exceeded all standard hospital discharge criteria,” the president’s physician, Dr. Sean Conley, said at a press briefing in which he was joined by the medical team treating the president on Monday.
Two days later, Conley said: “He’s [Trump] now been fever-free for more than 4 days, symptom-free for over 24 hours, and has not needed or received any supplemental oxygen since initial hospitalization.” He added that Trump had shown “detectable levels” of antibodies.
However, questions remain about the status of the president’s health.
When Conley was asked during Monday’s press briefing whether he had seen any evidence of pneumonia or any inflammation in Trump’s lungs, the physician replied: “We’ve done routine standard imaging, I’m just not at liberty to discuss.
When asked to confirm whether he is actively not disclosing what the president’s lung scans showed, Conley replied: “There are HIPAA [Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act] rules and regulations that restrict me in sharing certain things for his safety and his own health and reasons.”
At another press briefing on Saturday, Conley said the president was “doing very well”, He added: “At this time, the team and I are extremely happy with the progress the president has made. Thursday he had a mild cough, and some nasal congestion, and fatigue, all of which are now resolving and improving.”
That update differed from one given later that day by White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, who told reporters the president’s “vitals over the last 24 hours were very concerning and the next 48 hours will be critical in terms of his care.”
At Sunday’s press briefing, when a reporter asked who’s update (the physician’s or Meadows’) should be believed, Conley replied: “The chief [Meadows] and I worked side by side, and I think his statement was misconstrued. What he meant was that 24 hours ago, when he and I were checking on the president, that there was that momentary episode of the high fever and that temporary drop in the saturation, which prompted us to act expediently to move him up here.
“Fortunately, that was really a very transient limited episode. A couple hours later, he was back up again. I’m not going to speculate what that limited episode was about so early in the course, but he’s doing well,” Conley said Sunday.
Conley also noted Sunday that “Over the course of his illness, the president has experienced two episodes of transient drops in his oxygen saturation.”
When asked by a reporter at the Sunday briefing why Conley was reluctant to disclose previously that the president had been administered with oxygen, the doctor responded: “I was trying to reflect the upbeat attitude that the team, the president, that his course of illness has had. I didn’t want to give any information that might steer the course of illness in another direction and in doing so, it came off that we were trying to hide something, which wasn’t necessarily true.
“The fact of the matter is he’s doing really well. He is responding. As the team said, if everything continues to go well, we’re going to start discharge planning back to the White House,” Conley said Sunday.
Newsweek has contacted the White House for comment.
The president has now returned to the Oval Office, earlier than the period of isolation recommended by the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines, which advises: “You can be around others after 10 days since symptoms first appeared and 24 hours with no fever without the use of fever-reducing medications and other symptoms of COVID-19 are improving.”
The CDC also advises that those infected or who might be infected should “as much as possible, stay in a specific room and away from other people and pets in your home. If possible, you should use a separate bathroom. If you need to be around other people or animals in or outside of the home, wear a mask.”
Meadows noted the White House is keeping access to the Oval Office extremely limited.
Asked on Wednesday how Trump might return to the Oval Office, White House deputy press secretary, Brian Morgenstern, told reporters: “Well, we can do it in a safe way, we can disinfect regularly.”
He added: “We have PPE that we can use. And we can interact with him standing back.”
The wider picture
The novel coronavirus has infected more than 36.2 million people across the globe since it was first reported in Wuhan, China, including over 7.5 million in the U.S. Globally, more than a million have died following infection, while more than 25.2 million have reportedly recovered as of Thursday, according to Johns Hopkins University.
The graphic below, produced by Statista, illustrates a survey of U.S. adults concerned about catching COVID-19.
The graphic below, also provided by Statista, illustrates U.S. states with the most COVID-19 cases.
