“President Trump took a short, last-minute motorcade ride to wave to his supporters outside and has now returned to the Presidential Suite inside Walter Reed,” White House spokesman Judd Deere said in a statement. “Appropriate measures” had been taken, he added.
Trump was admitted to Walter Reed, a military hospital near Washington, DC on Friday shortly after he was diagnosed with COVID-19. The 74-year-old’s doctors said he has been given oxygen, as well as experimental treatments – which are usually used for people who have more severe cases of the disease, including the steroid dexamethasone.
Trump has posted videos and photos about his experience in hospital on Twitter since he was admitted.
“We’re going to pay a little surprise to some of the great patriots that we have out on the street,” Trump said in his most recent video – posted shortly before the drive-past.
Dr James Phillips, an assistant professor of emergency medicine at George Washington University, was among those criticising the drive-by, which he called “political theater”.
“Every single person in the vehicle during that completely unnecessary Presidential drive-by has to be quarantined for 14 days,” Phillips wrote on Twitter. “They might get sick. They may die.”
People with COVID-19 are generally required to quarantine for 14 days to avoid infecting others and the virus spreads more easily in indoor, confined environments.
“Beyond the ethical, clinical, epidemiological and health implications of this drive by, it shows a dire obsession with showing the public he’s still in control, creating a false sense of normalcy and trying to normalize a highly transmissible virus,” Dr Syra Madad, senior director of Special Pathogens at NYC Health + Hospitals, wrote on Twitter.
In the video, Trump said he had “learned a lot about COVID” by battling the virus in hospital.
“This is the real school. This isn’t the ‘let’s read the books school,’ and I get it, and I understand it, and it’s a very interesting thing,” he added.
Trump has repeatedly downplayed the pandemic and never wore a mask prior to his diagnosis. Face masks, hand-washing and physical distancing are crucial to curbing the spread of COVID-19, say the World Health Organization (WHO) and medical experts.
Almost 210,000 Americans have died, the highest death rate anywhere in the world, from the disease.
On Sunday, Trump's doctors said that the health of the president had "continued to change" and that he could be released to the White House as early as Monday.
After his close adviser, Hope Hicks, was diagnosed last week with COVID-19, Trump and his wife Melania were reported to have the disease. A number of close allies of the president, including his campaign manager Bill Stepien, former senior White House advisor Kellyanne Conway, and former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, have also tested positive.
The US election takes place in less than a month.
