President Trump gave a head-spinning response to reporters as he left the White House today as he tried to explain he’s consistently tested negative for COVID-19.
‘And I tested very positively in a another sense. This morning,’ Trump said. ‘Yeah, I tested positively toward negative, right? So I tested perfectly this morning. Meaning I tested negative.’
The president again said he was winding down his use of hydroxychloroquine, which is used to treat malaria, lupus and other illnesses, but comes with a laundry list of side effects.
‘I think it’s another day. I had a two-week regimen of hydroxychloroquine. And I’ve taken it just about two weeks. I think it’s another day,’ he said.
‘So I’m still here. I’m still here,’ he said, challenging critics who said he shouldn’t be using the drug off-label due to it causing abnormal heart rhythms in some patients.
Trump also told reporters he hasn’t taken an antibody test, which could show if he was exposed to the virus previously and built up some resistance to it.
Since Trump told reporters Monday that he decided to take hydroxychloroquine, a drug that he’s been touting as a potential coronavirus treatment for weeks, the White House has been put on defense.
That evening the White House press secretary sent out a note from the president’s physician that said ‘we concluded the potential benefit from treatment outweighed the relative risks’ on the decision for Trump to take hydroxychloroquine.
But the doctor didn’t say he wrote Trump the prescription.
Government health experts don’t have evidence yet that hydroxychloroquine is affective against the coronavirus.
The FDA did approve its ‘off-label’ use, but also put out a warning on April 30 about heart problems it could cause and said it should only be used to treat coronavirus patients who are hospitalized.
Beyond the heart problems, side effects include dizziness, nausea, rashes and even hallucinations.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi ridiculed Trump for taking the drug, saying it was dangerous for someone who was ‘morbidly obese.’
Trump slapped back calling her a ‘sick woman’ and said she was mentally ill.
Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee, was aghast when he was asked about it at a Yahoo virtual town hall Tuesday night.
‘It’s like saying maybe if you injected Clorox into your blood it may cure you.’
‘Come on man, what is he doing? What in God’s name is he doing?’ Biden asked.
As of this afternoon, the U.S. had reported more than 1.5 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 and nearly 94,000 deaths caused by it.
The country has administered more than 12.6 million tests for the virus, according to data from The COVID Tracking Project.
Trump said Tuesday that the high number of cases in the U.S. could be a viewed as a “badge of honor,” arguing that “it means our testing is much better” than other nations.