The Republican mayor of Miami said Donald Trump shouldn’t come to his city for the Oct. 15 debate with Joe Biden if the president is still testing positive with Covid19
Joe Biden looks to seal the electionDr. Aileen Marty, a Florida International University epidemiologist who advises Miami-Dade County government and its school district, said she needs far more data on Trump’s illness to be conclusive about his condition on Oct.
15. But when she factors in the information that’s been publicly released, her knowledge of the virus and the 74-year-old Trump’s obesity, she thinks he should not come at all. “Under no circumstance should he be traveling to perform in a debate at this time. He is contagious to others and a health risk to others. Doing so is also a health risk to him,” said Marty, who worked on and off at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, where Trump was hospitalized for the illness before returning to the White House. If they end up debating in Miami, Marty said, the candidates “should be in separate rooms with separate ventilation systems.” If plexiglass is utilized, “better make it a totally enclosed plexiglass ‘room’ with HEPA filtered air coming in and out of the space.” Dr. Mary Jo Trepka, Marty’s colleague at FIU, said, “I don’t think plexiglass can hurt.” But if she were advising the campaigns or the Commission on Presidential Debates, she would say they should not be in the same room. “I would do a virtual debate,” said Trepka, who consults for the city of Miami. “I think a person should do as many precautions as possible, and certainly plexiglass would be one of them.” Trepka said the president’s case is unique and spotlights the “greyness” of Centers for Disease Control coronavirus social-distancing guidance and the level of public information about the president’s health. Most people clear the virus within 10 days, she noted, which is why the CDC recommends infected people isolate for that period of time if they’ve improved and have no fever without the use of drugs like Tylenol. “However, if people are severely ill — which CDC defines as a person’s oxygen-saturation level — then they need to be isolated up to 20 days,” Tepka said, adding that she doesn’t know that data, which the president’s medical team has refused to release. Absent knowing the oxygen-saturation level, she said, FIU requires its employees to isolate for 20 days if they’ve been hospitalized. While Trump was hospitalized, it’s unclear the degree to which he did it as a prophylactic measure. And he was administered experimental therapies, making him a patient unlike any other. Suarez said his concerns are rooted in personal as well as political experience. Miami had some of the state’s strictest coronavirus-related lockdowns and highest number of coronavirus cases in Florida. Suarez himself was one of the first to get the virus, possibly from the press secretary of Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, who was later infected himself. Bolsonaro has long downplayed the dangers of the virus — even to a greater degree than Trump. Suarez said it took him 17 days from his first positive test to get a negative test and was in isolation for the entire period. Trump announced he was positive on Oct. 1. The 43-year-old mayor, a fitness buff who was vegan at the time and refraining from caffeine and alcohol, credits his health for preventing serious illness during his recovery. Suarez, who supported Hillary Clinton in 2016 even though he’s a Republican, said he’s not discussing whom he will vote for in November. The mayor of surrounding Miami-Dade County, Republican Carlos Gimenez, said he wasn’t sure about the need for plexiglass. A Trump ally, Gimenez said he would “ask our medical advisers on distancing and any other measures. I’ll have a meeting with them before the debate.” Asked if he had concerns that Trump might be Covid-positive if he came, Gimenez said, “No. We have a number of people here positive that we know of and don’t know of. We will know what his contagion level is and take the appropriate precautions.” Miami Beach Mayor Dan Gelber, a Democrat, said he’s not so sure about trusting the information from the White House after “his own doctor laughed about hisGelber pointed out a certain irony in Trump coming here because his ally, GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis, had at one point required all New Yorkers coming to Florida to quarantine upon arrival. Trump, who lived in New York when he won the presidency, declared Florida residency this year so the rule wouldn’t have applied to him. “This is insane,” Gelber said. “There should not be an exemption from proper safety and health precautions because you’re the president.”
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