Trump campaign says no change to rally coronavirus protocols following president’s release from hospital
President has frequently received criticism for holding large events amidst pandemic
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Your support makes all the difference.One of President Donald Trump’s senior campaign advisors has said that Trump rallies will go ahead as planned without any extra safety precautions following the president's release from hospital.
Mr Trump, who announced that he had tested positive for the novel coronavirus on Friday before he was admitted to hospital as a “precautionary measure”, has often been criticised for holding large campaign rallies without mandating masks or social distancing amidst the pandemic.
Senior campaign adviser Jason Miller was asked in an interview with CNN whether the campaign will be making any changes to its regulations following the president's experience of the virus.
Mr Miller said the campaign would continue to take the same steps it had in place prior to the president's infection, taking the temperature of attendees while providing face masks and hand sanitizer, but did not say they would make them compulsory.
"You know what, that's been a very safe and responsible thing to do," Mr Miller said. "That's what we've done from the beginning of this."
The comments come after the president faced backlash for leaving the Walter Reed Medical Centre for a photo op on Sunday evening, driving by his supporters lining the street outside in a slow-moving motorcade.
Critics said that the publicity stunt unnecessarily put the lives of others at risk and demonstrated that the president was not taking the deadly virus seriously.
Dr James P Phillips, a CNN media contributor and an attending physician at the Walter Reed Medical Centre where the president is being treated, attacked the trip, calling it "insanity".
"That presidential SUV is not only bulletproof, but hermetically sealed against chemical attack. The risk of Covid-19 transmission inside is as high as it gets outside of medical procedures," Dr Phillips said in a tweet.
"The irresponsibility is astounding. My thoughts are with the Secret Service forced to play."
Mr Miller insisted that the campaign does not want to hide from the virus, which has caused the deaths of over 210,000 Americans as of Monday.
“President Trump wants to get life back to normal for people and that's a critical point,” he said. “President Trump is going to lead us through this and he is going to defeat it.”
“Let's be clear, the president is in the hospital right now because he has contracted the virus,” CNN host Ana Cabrera said in response.
The president has been frequently criticsed by experts and Democrats for going ahead with rallys of thousands of people at a time.
George Washington University’s Jonathan Reiner called Donald Trump’s first rally this summer “criminal endangerment” because of the risk the crowd would spread coronavirus.
The doctor called the president’s indoor rally in late September in Nevada, which hosted a crowd of nearly 5,000 mostly maskless people “negligent homicide”.
Nevada governor Steve Sisolak called the decision to go ahead with an indoor rally during the coronavirus pandemic both “reckless and selfish”.
At the time, the president blamed the Democratic governor for the situation saying that he had cancelled any proposed outdoor options, including at Las Vegas International Airport.
“They cancelled six different sites because the governor wouldn’t let it happen, all external sites,” he said.
Over 7.4 million people have been infected with the novel coronavirus in the US since the pandemic began in March.
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