U.S. President Donald Trump used his Janesville, Wisconsin, rally on Saturday to again tout his purported immunity to coronavirus and threaten to kiss members of the crowd, Raw Story reported.
“Now I guess they say I’m immune,” he said.
“I’m immune, and I got better fast. I got better fast. I can now jump into the audience and give you all a big kiss — the women and the men. I’ll even kiss the men. I’ll kiss those big powerful men down there. I won’t love it, but I’ll kiss ’em.”
The comments echoed similar remarks he made during a rally in Sanford, Florida, on Monday. As reported by The Daily Beast , the event was his first since learning that he tested positive for coronavirus.
“I’ll kiss the guys and the beautiful women and the — I’ll just give you a big fat kiss,” he said after claiming he has an immunity to the infectious disease.
Trump also used the Wisconsin rally to claim that the United States is “rounding the corner” on coronavirus. Despite his claims, Raw Story noted that the country is experiencing a significant spike in hospitalizations.
According to Global News , experts call Trump’s recent comments on coronavirus immunity “extremely dangerous.” Isaac Bogoch, an infectious disease expert at the University of Toronto, acknowledged that some patients do become immune to COVID-19 after recovering from the virus. However, he noted it’s unclear how long such immunity lasts and how widespread it is in the population.
“We also know there’s some credible evidence that people can get reinfected,” he added.
Bogoch emphasized the importance of recovered coronavirus patients adhering to public health guidance, including wearing a mask and social distancing — both of which are not commonly practiced at Trump rallies.
Amid Trump’s first claims of his immunity to the virus, Lancet Infectious Diseases medical journal highlighted a case of a 25-year-old Nevada man getting reinfected. Most concerning is the fact that the second bout of the virus was more serious, although he ultimately recovered.
Elsewhere, the National Institute for Public Health confirmed the case of an 89-year-old Dutch woman who died after being reinfected with coronavirus. The woman also suffered from a rare form of bone marrow cancer.
As The Inquisitr reported, a White House official allegedly claimed that the Trump administration’s approach to dealing with the pandemic aligns with the tenets of herd immunity, which involves letting the disease spread throughout the population until at least 60 percent of individuals have immunity.
