October 5 Trump Covid-19 news

By Helen Regan, Adam Renton, Steve George, Nick Thompson, Meg Wagner, Melissa Macaya and Amy Woodyatt, CNN

Updated 2:57 p.m. ET, November 23, 2020

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6:23 a.m. ET, October 5, 2020

Here's a timeline of Trump's Covid-19 illness so far

President Donald Trump walks to Marine One on October 2, to be taken from the White House to Walter Reed medical center in Bethesda, Maryland. Sarah Silbiger/Bloomberg/Getty Images

Following two briefings from President Donald Trump's doctors over the weekend, more details about the course of his Covid-19 illness are emerging — but some questions still remain.

Here's a brief timeline of what we know so far:

Thursday

Trump receives his first positive coronavirus test result after returning from a fundraiser in Bedminster, New Jersey, according to a White House official. That result was via a rapid test.
The President then takes a more thorough PCR test, which also came back positive, according to the official.

Friday

Just before 1 a.m. ET, Trump tweets that he tested positive for Covid-19.
White House physician Dr. Sean Conley said the President "was doing well with only mild symptoms."
Late in the morning, Trump gets a "high high fever and his oxygen saturation was transiently dipping below 94%," Conley said. A normal blood oxygen saturation level is 95% or higher.
Trump is given supplementary oxygen.
Conley said Trump was out of bed, moving around the White House residence and had only mild symptoms.
In the afternoon, Conley said in a White House letter that Trump received an antibody cocktail — an investigational treatment from the biotechnology company Regeneron — and had taken zinc, vitamin D, the heartburn drug famotidine, melatonin and a daily aspirin.
The President is transported to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for monitoring.
Trump begins a five-day course of the antiviral drug remdesivir. The treatment is intended to shorten recovery time for Covid-19 patients.

Saturday

The President has a second episode of his oxygen level dropping. "It dropped down to about 93%," Conley said on Sunday. "We watched it and it returned back up."
Trump is given the corticosteroid drug dexamethasone, which has been shown to help patients with Covid-19 and is typically administered to patients on supplemental oxygen or ventilation.
In the evening, Trump tweets a video message from Walter Reed, saying that he is "starting to feel good."

Sunday

Trump has remained without fever since Friday morning, Dr. Sean Dooley, one of the President's physicians, said on Sunday.
As of around noon, Trump feels well, Garibaldi said. "He's been up and around. Our plan for today is to have him to eat and drink, be up out of bed as much as possible to be mobile."
Garibaldi said Trump could be discharged on Monday if he "continues to look and feel as well as he does today."
Trump briefly leaves the hospital with his security detail to ride in an SUV past supporters cheering him on outside Walter Reed.
Trump announces in a new video that he is getting "great reports" from his doctors and said it’s "been a very interesting journey" since getting Covid-19. "This is the real school. This isn’t the let’s read the book school and I get it. And I understand it," he said.

5:51 a.m. ET, October 5, 2020

Global stocks rise as White House indicates Trump could leave hospital soon

From CNN Business' Jill Disis in Hong Kong

Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on October 2, in Bethesda, Maryland. Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images

President Trump is trying to convince the world that his Covid-19 diagnosis is not a big deal after all. That strategy might be working on investors, for now.

Global markets and US stock futures are rising after Trump's physicians said that the President could be discharged from Walter Reed National Medical Center as early as Monday. A quick recovery could ease some of the huge uncertainty surrounding the US election with just four weeks left in the campaign.

Here's the latest:

In Asia, Japan's Nikkei 225 rose more than 1.2%. South Korea's Kospi and Hong Kong's Hang Seng, which were closed at the end of last week for public holidays, each ticked up roughly 1.3%. China's Shanghai Composite remains closed for Golden Week celebrations.
European stocks followed those gains, with the FTSE 100 advancing 0.4% in London. France's CAC 40 and Germany's DAX increased 0.6% and 0.5%, respectively.
Wall Street seems poised to join the rally, too. Futures for the Dow, S&P 500 and Nasdaq each rose between 0.4% and 0.6%.

The positive outlook marks a reversal from last Friday, when stocks around the global tumbled after Trump tweeted that he had tested positive for a virus that has now killed more than 1 million people worldwide and infected tens of millions of others.

Various reports over the weekend sowed confusion about Trump's condition. While his physicians on Saturday said the President was "doing very well," chief of staff Mark Meadows later told reporters that Trump's vitals were "very concerning."

Then on Sunday, Trump left Walter Reed with his security detail so he could ride in an SUV past his supporters — a stunt that one physician at Walter Reed said displayed an "astounding" level of irresponsibility. (The physician, Dr. James Phillips, has not participated in the care of the President.)

"It is no surprise to see the reaction today ... after the president's better-than-expected Covid prognosis," wrote Stephen Innes, chief global markets strategist at Axi, in a Monday research note.

Read the full story here.

8:39 a.m. ET, October 5, 2020

Mixed messaging on Trump's health "degrades any semblance of stability," says CNN national security analyst

The White House is "shooting themselves in the foot," by giving inconsistent and mixed messages about President Donald Trump's health status, CNN national security analyst Samantha Vinograd said on Monday.

"During crisis times, a core focus for the US government is to send messages about stability. That's to really dissuade malign actors to take advantage of perceived vulnerabilities in the national security apparatus," Vinograd, a former senior adviser to President Barack Obama's National Security Council, told CNN's Michael Holmes.
"This time around, unfortunately, the team is so incompetent at their communications that they look completely disorganized, they look completely untruthful. And that degrades any semblance of stability the administration might be putting forward."

Vinograd added that countries such as China and Russia "have been trying to discredit the United States as a competent global leader."

But, she said, "that's really not a hard sell based upon the President's status and the disorganized approach to communicating the state of his health."

3:33 a.m. ET, October 5, 2020

Who in Trump's inner circle has tested positive for the virus so far?

At least 10 people in President Donald Trump's family, the US government and circle of advisers and recent contacts have recently tested positive for Covid-19.

The cluster of cases among top Republican officials probably began at Trump's Rose Garden event announcing the nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, a senior administration official said on Saturday.

Here's a rundown of who has tested positive for the virus so far:

Current and former Trump administration officials:

Hope Hicks, one of Trump's closest aides, tested positive for coronavirus on Thursday.
Nicholas Luna, one of the White House aides who works the closest to Trump, also tested positive, a White House official confirmed to CNN.
Kellyanne Conway, former White House counselor, said Friday night that she has tested positive and has mild symptoms. Conway attended Trump's Rose Garden event last Saturday.

Members of Congress and the Judiciary:

Republican Sens. Mike Lee of Utah and Thom Tillis of North Carolina separately announced Friday that they'd tested positive. Both are members of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
The Wisconsin Republican Sen. Ron Johnson tested positive for coronavirus after being exposed to someone with the virus earlier in the week, his spokesman said Saturday.

Republican Party officials and Trump campaign staff:

RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, the chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, tested positive for coronavirus, an RNC spokesman announced Friday. She received confirmation she was Covid-19 positive on Wednesday, RNC spokesman Mike Reed said.
Campaign manager Bill Stepien learned Friday night that he had tested positive, according to a senior official. He is suffering from what the official described as "mild flu-like" symptoms.
Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor, who helped Trump prepare for the first presidential debate earlier this week and attended the Supreme Court announcement last weekend, said Saturday he had tested positive. He was tested Friday after news that Trump contracted the virus, and said Saturday evening that he checked himself into Morristown Medical Center earlier that afternoon as a precautionary measure.

Trump family members:

First lady Melania Trump tested positive for coronavirus on Thursday. While the President was sent to Walter Reed Medical Center, Melania Trump remained at the White House and has experienced "mild symptoms" of the virus.

Read more:

Here's who has tested positive and negative for Covid-19 in Trump's circle

2:29 a.m. ET, October 5, 2020

White House focuses on optics while America wonders about health of the President

From CNN's Maeve Reston

It's been more than two days since President Donald Trump was airlifted to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, but Americans remain largely in the dark about the trajectory of his infection with Covid-19 and the specifics of his condition as the White House tries to control the optics of his illness with misleading briefings, posed images and even a reckless photo-op outside the hospital.

A governing crisis: Some seven months into a pandemic that has killed more than 209,000 Americans, the nation is now facing a grave governing crisis with its commander in chief hospitalized, as the White House events of the past week serve as a textbook example of how not to handle a deadly virus.

Lack of information: The White House already has a huge credibility problem with the public, and the lack of on-the-record information from White House officials over the weekend served as a master class in opacity and contradiction that raised major questions about the President's health.

Concern about optics: For much of this year, Trump has spun an alternate reality about the dangers of coronavirus -- disputing science and the efficacy of masks, downplaying the risks to the American people, and making false statements about how 99% of coronavirus cases in America are "totally harmless" or that the virus "affects virtually nobody."

Rallies and rapid tests: Trump encouraged his aides and advisers to live in that dangerous fantasy land, pushing his luck to the limits as late as this past week when he again recklessly gathered thousands of unmasked Americans at his political rallies and packed the top officials in government into a Rose Garden ceremony for his Supreme Court nominee. All the while, White House officials embraced the fallacy that administering rapid coronavirus tests frequently at the White House could provide a shield of immunity.

Read the full story:

White House focuses on optics while America wonders about health of the President

8:39 a.m. ET, October 5, 2020

Analysis: Trump is hospitalized with Covid, but he's still not taking the pandemic seriously

Analysis from CNN's Stephen Collinson

President Donald Trump gives a thumbs up while greeting his supporters outside of Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, on Sunday, October 4, 2020. Graeme Sloan/Bloomberg via Getty Images

President Donald Trump's fight with Covid-19 has so far not convinced him to prioritize a responsible approach to a pandemic that has killed 209,000 Americans over his own political needs.

Trump staged an extraordinary drive-by photo-op Sunday in front of supporters gathered with flags and banners outside Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.

The stunt, which risked exposing Secret Service agents riding in his armored SUV, amounted to a familiar flouting of government recommendations to stop the spread of the virus which has infected 7 million Americans.

It was the latest flagrant sign of politics superseding Trump's duties as a steward of the national well-being -- with Election Day only 29 days away and voting in many states already underway.

It came amid lingering confusion about the President's true state of health after a weekend in which the White House undertook strenuous efforts to minimize the seriousness of his case. But details about the cocktail of therapies that he is taking suggest that he is experiencing complications from the disease, even as his doctors said it was possible he could return to the White House Monday.

The showman President's motorcade photo-op followed a misleading and politicized White House performance that displayed all the failures that have made the US anti-Covid effort one of the worst in the world.

Read the full analysis:

Analysis: Trump is hospitalized with Covid, but he's still not taking the pandemic seriously

1:18 a.m. ET, October 5, 2020

US reports more than 38,000 Covid-19 cases

From CNN's Alta Spells

The United States reported at least 38,630 new Covid-19 cases and 410 new virus-related fatalities on Sunday, according to Johns Hopkins University.

At least 7,420,971 coronavirus infections, including 209,794 deaths, have now been recorded in the US.

The totals include cases from all 50 states, the District of Columbia and other US territories, as well as repatriated cases.

CNN is tracking the US cases:

Tracking Covid-19 cases in the US

1:06 a.m. ET, October 5, 2020

Trump campaign adviser says rally protocols won't change after President's coronavirus diagnosis

From CNN's Paul LeBlanc

A senior adviser to President Donald Trump's reelection campaign said Sunday there won't be any additional safety protocols for upcoming rallies following the President's hospitalization after contracting Covid-19.

Senior campaign adviser Jason Miller, when pressed by CNN's Ana Cabrera on the safety of Trump's campaign rallies, which have largely flaunted best public health practices, said the campaign would take the temperature of attendees while providing face masks and hand sanitizer -- the same steps that were in place before Trump's diagnosis.

"You know what, that's been a very safe and responsible thing to do," Miller said. "That's what we've done from the beginning of this."

His comments, paired with Trump's Sunday photo-op in which he left the hospital with his security detail so he could ride in an SUV passing supporters, raise more questions about whether the President and his campaign grasp the seriousness of a highly contagious and deadly disease.

His comments also underscore the importance that Republicans believe rallies play in Trump's White House bid.

Read the full story:

Trump campaign adviser says rally protocols won't change after President's coronavirus diagnosis

8:39 a.m. ET, October 5, 2020

Analysis: As Trump is treated for coronavirus, the press can't lose sight of the nationwide story

Analysis from CNN's Brian Stelter

The President's health crisis is undoubtedly the biggest single story in the United States right now. But it should not blot out the broader coronavirus story.

Along with the cooler temperatures that drive people indoors, there are worrying trends across the US. "In many states, local and state leaders are reporting worrying milestones," CNN's Christina Maxouris and Jason Hanna reported over the weekend.

Wisconsin is emerging as a hotspot: The state reported 2,892 new cases on Saturday, "a record number." In Kentucky, the governor said his state "shattered" the previous case record. In New York City, the mayor said he wanted to lock down certain hot spots in the city.

Overall, "in the past five days of reporting nationwide, there have been a total of 232,657 cases of coronavirus reported, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. That is the most cases in a five-day period reported since mid-August," per CNN's Chuck Johnston.

The daily new-case count surpassed 50,000 on Friday. And on Saturday, there were 49,994 new cases reported nationwide, according to JHU. The virus is tightening its grip on many parts of the continental US. And the fall is just beginning, so expect that grip to get even tighter. The President's diagnosis should be reported in that context...

Big picture: More than 7.4 million people have been infected nationwide, according to Johns Hopkins data. More than 209,000 people have died.

Read the full analysis: