Name: Column: Trump puts Secret Service agents at risk with COVID Car Ride — but relax, it was medically necessary
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Column: Trump puts Secret Service agents at risk with COVID Car Ride — but relax, it was medically necessary

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AdvertisementBy Chicago TribuneOct 05, 2020 at 11:55 amAs President Donald Trump continues to battle COVID-19, a number of questions have come up about the accuracy of health updates coming from his medical team and the decision to allow him to take a Sunday SUV ride to wave at supporters outside Walter Reed Medical Center. As a self-appointed member of President Trump’s nationwide team of citizen-physicians, I want to assure Americans the president is doing unbelievably fantastic and everything you’re hearing about him is accurate.AdvertisementFirst, let me share my credentials. I am an almost-graduate of the Central Florida Institute of Therapeutic Clown Medicine and Exotic Dancing and a member in good standing of the Coalition of Ombudsmen Validating Information about Donald, or COVID.On Sunday, Trump briefly left the hospital with a Secret Service detail in an SUV with windows closed. The president’s motorcade drove past supporters lining the road outside the hospital. He waved and then returned to the hospital.AdvertisementI want to assure everyone that the excursion was both sensible and medically necessary.Some so-called medical professionals disagree, including Dr. James Phillips, a doctor affiliated with Walter Reed. He tweeted: “Every single person in the vehicle during that completely unnecessary Presidential ‘drive-by’ just now has to be quarantined for 14 days. They might get sick. They may die. For political theater. Commanded by Trump to put their lives at risk for theater. This is insanity.”Fact check: FALSE! The last thing patriotic Americans and their president need is Dr. Donnie Downer claiming a COVID Car Ride is a bad idea.I promise you, one of the leading treatments for COVID-19 is a quick outing or, if feasible, a short boat parade. It allows the infected person to “share the viral load” with healthier, more expendable people, and it also gives the ego a chance to reinflate.Furthermore, by leaving the hospital for a joyride while suffering from a wildly contagious disease that has killed more than 200,000 Americans and decimated the economy, President Trump modeled sensible behavior that encourages others to put their emotional needs first while ignoring the health of others. Isn’t that what America is all about?Another area of complaint involves the information White House officials and Trump’s medical team are sharing with the public.For example, there was confusion Saturday about when exactly the president tested positive for the virus and whether he was given supplemental oxygen.Trump’s physician, Dr. Sean Conley, explained Sunday that he had intentionally delivered vague answers about the health of the leader of the free world because: “I didn’t want to give any information that might steer the course of illness in another direction.”AdvertisementBased on my expansive knowledge of medicine (and exotic dancing), I can tell you Conley made the right move. Positive thinking and dishonesty are two of the best ways to defeat a virus, along with gargling bleach, telling other people to take hydroxychloroquine and sticking a week-old russet potato in your ear.To save Conley and other physicians on Trump’s team from having to waste time updating the stupid media, I offer this summary of President Trump’s medical condition, which will stand until he is fully recovered and back in the White House making American great again:Glorious God-King Trump continues to exhibit heroic manliness and tonight did many thousands of pushups before donating testosterone to lesser men.He continues to be the best COVID-19 patient in the world, with many saying he is handling the virus far better than anyone they have ever seen, including former President Barack Obama. (The fact that Obama has never tested positive for the coronavirus is just another sign of his weakness.)President Trump has had no trouble breathing, and in fact is breathing so well he has been teaching other patients at Walter Reed to breathe better. Many have applauded the president for his generosity and kindness and excellence in teaching breathing. He also has a beautiful singing voice, tremendous strength and weighs 180 pounds.Since being admitted to the hospital, the president has thrice leapt from his bed shouting, “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds!” This is a common part of the COVID-19 recovery.AdvertisementWhile the president’s remarkably strong immune system could defeat the virus on its own — and the virus would consider it an honor to be felled by white blood cells of such vitality — doctors are giving President Trump an antibody cocktail made by the pharmaceutical company Regeneron along with remdesivir and dexamethasone. They have also offered a blót, or blood sacrifice, to Magni, the Norse god of strength, but that’s purely a precaution.He recited the following and asked it be relayed to the American people: “The past and present wilt — I have fill’d them, emptied them. And proceed to fill my next fold of the future. I AM LARGE, I CONTAIN MULTITUDES!"Also, on Monday morning, the president’s head briefly separated from his body, an expected side effect seen only in the strongest and most handsome of patients.Is it possible the man in charge of America’s nuclear codes is on oxygen, taking drugs that can affect his mood and judgment and cause hallucinations, or recklessly endangering the lives of Secret Service agents so he can wave at strangers? Well, medically speaking, anything’s possible. But is that really information you want to know? Of course not.That’s why it’s crucial you rely only on White House officials and the president’s therapeutically fibbing doctor, whose words sound reassuring as long as you don’t think about them too hard.As a medical (and exotic dancing) expert, I can tell you thinking is VERY unhealthy.AdvertisementEspecially when it involves this administration.rhuppke@chicagotribune.com Advertisement

AdvertisementBy Chicago TribuneOct 05, 2020 at 11:55 amAs President Donald Trump continues to battle COVID-19, a number of questions have come up about the accuracy of health updates coming from his medical team and the decision to allow him to take a Sunday SUV ride to wave at supporters outside Walter Reed Medical Center. As a self-appointed member of President Trump’s nationwide team of citizen-physicians, I want to assure Americans the president is doing unbelievably fantastic and everything you’re hearing about him is accurate.AdvertisementFirst, let me share my credentials. I am an...

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Rex Huppke writes a humor(ish) column. He is considered (by himself) to be America’s most-beloved columnist, though there is no empirical evidence of that. Before becoming a columnist he spent a decade reporting on social justice issues, from poverty and gang violence to the gay civil rights movement. He previously worked for The Associated Press.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/chinews-ask-rex-huppke-i-just-work-20130507-staff.html#nt=byline

Rex Huppke

The Chicago Tribune is a daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States, owned by Tribune Publishing. Founded in 1847, and formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" (a slogan for which WGN radio and television are named), it remains the most-read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region. It had the 6th highest circulation for American newspapers in 2017.

Column: Trump puts Secret Service agents at risk with COVID Car Ride — but relax, it was medically necessary

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