Doctors shocked by Trump’s motorcade ride outside Walter Reed: ‘This is insanity’
Doctors have condemned President Donald Trump’s “drive-by” in a motorcade outside Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on Sunday after he’s been hospitalized with COVID-19.
Trump tested positive for the virus on Thursday and was moved to the hospital on Friday. He released a video Sunday telling his supporters he would “pay a little surprise to some of the great patriots that we have out on the street.”
Shortly thereafter, Trump’s motorcade drove by the perimeter of the hospital, with the president waving to supporters while wearing a mask. Secret Service agents could be seen inside wearing protective gear and masks.
White House spokesman Judd Deere told The Associated Press that the drive-by “was cleared by the medical team as safe to do.”
Deere said precautions, including using PPE, were used to protect Trump, Secret Service agents and White House officials.
Trump’s brief trip outside the hospital still left some medical professionals concerned, calling the drive “irresponsible.”
“Every single person in the vehicle during that completely unnecessary Presidential ‘drive-by’ just now has to be quarantined for 14 days. They might get sick. They may die. For political theater. Commanded by Trump to put their lives at risk for theater. This is insanity,” Dr. James Phillips, an attending physician at Walter Reed, tweeted on Sunday.
In another tweet, Phillips said the motorcade “is not only bulletproof, but hermetically sealed against chemical attack. The risk of COVID19 transmission inside is as high as it gets outside of medical procedures. The irresponsibility is astounding. My thoughts are with the Secret Service forced to play.”
Dr. Jonathan Reiner, director of the Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory at The George Washington University Hospital, was also concerned about Trump’s ride.
“In the hospital when we go into close contact with a COVID patient we dress in full PPE: Gown, gloves, N95, eye protection, hat. This is the height of irresponsibility,” he tweeted.
Dr. Robert Wachter, chairman of the department of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, told CNBC on Monday that he wasn’t concerned about Trump’s health if his condition was stable but for the Secret Service agents in the car with him.
“What I am concerned about is that he sits in a hermetically sealed Secret Service van … along with, I think, eight or nine Secret Service agents while he’s actively infectious. The Secret Service agents take a vow to protect him, but they don’t take a vow to be protected from him and I think he is putting them at absolutely unnecessary risk,” Wachter said.
Dr. Eric Burnett, who specializes in internal medicine at Columbia University Irving Medical Center, said in a video on TikTok: “At the height of the pandemic I can’t tell you how many of my patients begged me to leave the hospital for just a minute to go outside. To get some air. So they could see their families. I had to tell them no because it was for their safety and the safety of those around them.”
Trump’s blood oxygen levels dropped twice in recent days, according to the AP, citing Trump’s medical team. Trump was given a steroid usually recommended for those very sick with COVID-19, but doctors said his health is getting better and he could be discharged on Monday.
Trump’s physicians are expected to give another update on his health on Monday, The Wall Street Journal reported. On Sunday, doctors said Trump’s vitals were stable, he hasn’t had a fever since Friday, and he didn’t have shortness of breath, according to the publication.
Dr. Sean Conley, the White House physician, said he didn’t share initially that Trump’s oxygen levels had dropped because he didn’t want to cause alarm, The Washington Post reported.
“I was trying to reflect the upbeat attitude that the team, the president, over his course of illness, has had,” Conley said, according to The Washington Post. “I didn’t want to give any information that might steer the course of illness in another direction. And in doing so, you know, it came off that we were trying to hide something, which wasn’t necessarily true. . . . The fact of the matter is that he’s doing really well.”
This story was originally published October 5, 2020 at 7:09 AM with the headline "Doctors shocked by Trump’s motorcade ride outside Walter Reed: ‘This is insanity’."