Shortly after returning to the White House, Donald Trump tweeted a video to precise his thanks and show the planet how great he felt. "I just left Reed center and it's really something very special. The doctors, the nurses, the primary responders — and that I learned such a lot about coronavirus, and one thing that's for certain: Don't let it dominate you. do not be scared of it. We're getting to beat it. we have the simplest medical equipment, we have got the simplest medicines, all developed recently. And you are going to beat it. I didn't feel so good... I could have left two days ago... I felt great, better than I ever have during a while ..." he said.
Yet within the face of this reassurance, Trump "gasping" had begun to trend on Twitter. it'd have had to try to to with the very fact that moments after he reached the White House balcony, dramatically removed his medical mask, and turned to face reporters, he also seemed to be struggling to breathe (via Twitter).
The Twitterverse was divided over Trump 'gasping'
Some Twitter users were incredulous. "Trump seems like a goldfish that fell out of the fishbowl onto the ground, gasping for breath," commented one user alongside a video retweeted everywhere the Twitterverse showing the president appearing to require big gulps of air. Another tweet said: "Maybe Trump should take it easy. He's visibly gasping for air after climbing stairs and posturing like Putin. COVID ain't no joke." a 3rd commented: "Trump climbs a couple of steps to the White House, flies his mask then is visibly gasping and having difficulty (sic) breathing while he tries to wave and pretend everything is ok ." A fourth said: "Trump is gasping with pneumonia. Does he not think we will see?"
The president's supporters maintained the gasps were imaginary, with one saying: "LOL, the triggered left has now abandoned the 'hoax' theory and has gone back to Trump 'gasping' for air and on his deathbed notion. Come on now, structure your minds because the remainder folks got to know. It cannot be both. Only 8:40 PM though, carry on. Hysterical."
One of the president's biggest critics immediately is Kellyanne Conway's daughter Claudia, who posted, "guys lmao he is not doing better... he's so ridiculous. apparently he's doing badly lol and that they do what they will to stabilize him" (via Palmer Report).
Trump's messaging contradicts advice from public health experts
Twitter's backlash against the president's behavior may make public health experts breathe a touch easier. Doctors had hoped that Trump might learn a couple of lessons about COVID-19, but that does not appear to be the case. A professor of drugs at the University of Pennsylvania Harald Schmidt tells The NY Times: "I am struggling for words — this is often crazy. it's just utterly irresponsible."
By virtue of his position, Trump's experience of COVID is slightly different from everyone else's. The daughter of 1 COVID victim says: "My mom, a respiratory therapist, couldn't get tested at her hospital where she worked, she had to seem for 2 days for a testing site while feeling the consequences of COVID, she didn't want to travel to a hospital because she said it had been worse there and she or he didn't want to call an ambulance because it had been too expensive. So she stayed home for every week and lost her pulse as soon because the medics put her on a gurney." Newsweek has also acknowledged that a price for a five-day course of Remdesivir, one among the medicines the president is on, costs $3,120 — or together candidate for the Senate put it, "Remdesivir is approximately 4 years of taxes for a few taxpayers."
The U.S. currently has 7.4 million cases of COVID-19, with nearly 210,000 deaths.
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