President Donald Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani said Tuesday he expects to be discharged from the hospital soon after receiving treatment following a COVID-19 diagnosis.
“I’ve been walking around. I think they are going to let me out tomorrow morning,” the former New York City mayor, 76, told WABC Radio.
Giuliani was reportedly being cared for at a hospital in Washington. The lawyer said he didn’t want to go to the hospital but Trump convinced him to, saying: “‘Don’t be stupid. We can get it over within three days, if we send you to the hospital.’”
Giuliani said pretty much all symptoms he was experiencing were gone, save for a cough. Other symptoms of the disease include aches, loss of taste and smell, and shortness of breath, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The lawyer was treated with remdesivir, an antiviral drug that Trump was treated with earlier this year after contracting COVID-19, and dexamethasone, a steroid that Trump took.
“The minute I took the cocktail yesterday, I felt 100 percent better,” Giuliani said. He said he wasn’t going to overreact to what happened, noting he'd been through cancer and other serious medical issues before.
“I'd rather face risk than live in a basement all my life,” he said. “This is in the category now of a curable disease. The mortality rates are nothing like they were five, six months ago. And they’re reacting as if it’s the same mortality rates as five or six months ago,” he added, criticizing officials who have recently been enacting partial lockdowns, such as New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
Giuliani before his diagnosis had been traveling to speak to state lawmakers in Trump’s quest to challenge election results in battleground states, alleging fraud and other irregularities.
The campaign said Giuliani tested negative twice immediately preceding his trip, which took him to Arizona, Michigan, and Georgia. Giuliani did not experience any symptoms or test positive for COVID-19 until more than 48 hours after his return, the campaign added.
