October 05, 2020 01:29 PM UTC

Trump Says He's Leaving Hospital Tonight

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• by: Colorado Pols

UPDATE #3: Maybe leaving the hospital today was not the best idea:

Trump looks like he is gasping for air pic.twitter.com/4k2v4Jxlir

— Brennan Murphy (@brenonade) October 5, 2020

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UPDATE #2: President Trump has left the building, departing Walter Reed Hospital and returning to the White House.

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UPDATE: As The New York Times reports, President Trump isn’t getting a “sympathy bump” in the polls in large part because Americans think he could have avoided getting COVID-19:

Polls by Ipsos/Reuters and YouGov/Yahoo conducted on Friday and Saturday found that most Americans feel the president hadn’t been taking the coronavirus seriously, in terms of policy or personal conduct, and that he could have avoided getting sick.

Both polls also showed Joseph R. Biden Jr. maintaining his national lead over Mr. Trump. The Ipsos/Reuters poll showed Mr. Biden up by 10 percentage points — one point higher than in its last several national polls, including one from after last Tuesday’s first presidential debate.

The poll found that nearly two-thirds of Americans, including half of Republicans, think Mr. Trump could have avoided the virus if he had taken it more seriously.

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As The Washington Post reports:

Trump announced that he will return to the White House on Monday night after spending the past three days at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, where he has been receiving treatment for covid-19.

“I will be leaving the great Walter Reed Medical Center today at 6:30 P.M.,” the president said in a tweet. “Feeling really good!”

The president also played down the threat of the coronavirus, even as several other members of his administration —including press secretary Kayleigh McEnany and at least two other White House communications aides — have contracted it in recent days…

…At a briefing Monday, White House physician Sean Conley said that Trump had met the discharge criteria, although he declined to answer several questions from reporters, including on the timing of Trump’s last negative coronavirus test.

Trump undoubtedly has the best doctors and treatments available to aid in his recovery, but as many health experts have cautioned, patients requiring hospitalization for COVID-19 are not usually good to go after just a few days. From a separate Washington Post story:

The assertion by President Trump’s doctors that he could be discharged from the hospital as early as Monday astonished outside infectious-disease experts, who said he remains in a dangerous period of vulnerability when some covid-19 patients decline precipitously and require urgent intervention…

…The talk of the president’s release from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center came as Conley and two other physicians treating Trump gave an upbeat but incomplete characterization of his condition. Outside doctors said they were mystified by what they said was an inconsistent portrayal of the president’s illness as relatively mild despite the aggressive mix of treatments he is getting.

For just one example of why Trump needs to be more cautious: Consider this timeline of the illness and death of former Republican Presidential candidate Herman Cain.

We certainly wish the President well…and we’re crossing our fingers for everyone at the White House who will soon be in closer proximity to Trump.