ATLANTA — As President Donald Trump continues to battle COVID-19 at Walter Reed Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, many people here in Georgia are wondering how the diagnosis is going to impact the campaign.
Early, in-person voting begins all over the state just 10 days from now.
One political expert told Channel 2′s Justin Wilfon that it’s still impossible to say what impact the president’s hospitalization will have on the election.
“As it relates to the president’s health and fitness, since he was sworn in and during the 2016 campaign, transparency related to Trump’s health has not been a hallmark of this White House,” said Channel 2 political analyst Bill Crane.
He told Wilfon that the White House needs to be more transparent about the president’s condition.
“I would admonish and suggest to the White House going forward, probably if not hourly, several times a day, a briefing on the president’s condition, as well as other senior staff,” Crane said.
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With the president now hospitalized, Wilfon also talked with Dr. Marybeth Sexton at Emory University about the preexisting conditions that can put patients more at risk of serious COVID-19 complications.
“So we know that people who have certain risk factors, and those do include age and obesity. Also, things like high blood pressure, existing heart and lung disease, diabetes. Some of those things increase your risk for being more seriously ill or having complications from COVID,” Sexton said.
Trump is 74 years old and, according to the body mass index, is also considered obese.
“But we know we’ve seen people in their 90s not have symptoms and people in their 20s land in the intensive care unit,” Sexton said. “So all of this means we’re all still learning about who gets really sick and why. And so it just means that everybody should be careful and take precautions.”
Trump’s illness pulls him off the campaign trail, with just one month until the election and millions of Americans already casting ballots.
Trump visited Atlanta just a week ago to try to rally support. Our latest Channel 2 Action News/Landmark communications poll shows the president trailing Joe Biden in Georgia by two points.
“The race is tightening in Georgia as it is elsewhere. Part of that is people making their minds up,” Crane said.
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