Giuliani shares that he's getting the same COVID-19 treatment as Trump, as the US reports 2,622 more coronavirus deaths on Tuesday
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- Rudy Giuliani, 76, called into his radio show on 77 WABC from his hospital bed at MedStar Georgetown University Medical Center and said he expects to leave on Wednesday.
- In the interview, Giuliani said he was receiving the same experimental cocktail of drugs that President Donald Trump received in October, and claimed he was not aware of its high cost or lack of availability to the general public.
- "The minute I took the cocktail," Giuliani said, "I felt 100% better."
- Giuliani's comments come as on Tuesday, US states reported 213,498 new cases, and 2,622 deaths, with 104,600 people currently hospitalized with COVID-19, according to the COVID Tracking Project.
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The president's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani repeated a host of false claims about COVID-19 on Tuesday and lauded the expensive treatment he has been receiving when he called into his radio show on 77 WABC from his hospital bed at Georgetown University Medical Center.
Giuliani's hospitalization and interview coincided with an ongoing surge of COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, and deaths in the US, as states begin to report new cases after the Thanksgiving holiday.
According to the COVID Tracking Project, on Tuesday, US states reported 213,498 new cases and 2,622 deaths, with 104,600 people currently hospitalized with COVID-19.
In the interview, Giuliani claimed that COVID-19 was curable and said that people "overdo the mask." (Masks are touted my health experts as an effective way to stem transmission of the novel coronavirus that causes the disease known as COVID-19.) Although vaccines are in process - and approved and being rolled out in the United Kingdom - there is no current cure for COVID-19.
Giuliani also made a series of claims about the treatment he was receiving, claiming it is "exactly the same" as the experimental cocktail of drugs President Donald Trump received when Trump was hospitalized with COVID-19 for three days at Walter Reed Hospital in October.
"His doctor sent me here, talked me into it. I didn't really want to go to the hospital and he said don't be stupid, we can get it over in three days if we send you to the hospital," Giuliani told WABC.
During Trump's stay at the hospital which started on October 2, Trump received an IV infusion of the antiviral drug Remdesivir, as well as an experimental antibody cocktail not widely available to the public.
An analysis by Insider found that between the three-day hospital stay, the drugs, and transportation, Trump's treatment would have cost $650,000 out of pocket.
"The minute I took the cocktail," Giuliani said on his show, "I felt 100% better."
Giuliani added that he wasn't aware of the lack of broad availability of his treatment regimen to the public.
"Sometimes, when you're a celebrity, they're worried if something happens to you," Giuliani added. "They're going to examine it more carefully and do everything right."
Giuliani claimed that he expected to be discharged from the hospital Wednesday and that he experienced no major COVID-19 symptoms. On his radio show, he also claimed that he had tested negative before his public and court appearances in three states.
Giuliani, unmasked, met with several Republican lawmakers in Arizona last week, and this week the state legislature announced it would close both chambers as a precaution.
Giuliani also confirmed to listeners that Jenna Ellis, an attorney working in close quarters with Giuliani on the Trump campaign's legal efforts, has tested positive for COVID-19.
Giuliani's comments come as new nationwide data released by the Department of Health and Human Services on Monday showed hospital capacity and bed use at a hospital-by-hospital level across 2,200 US counties for the first time throughout the pandemic.
According to data analysis by the COVID Hospitalization Project, in 126 counties across the country, the average hospital is at least 90% occupied, with hospitals in Kentucky, Georgia, Minnesota, Oklahoma, and Texas feeling the most strain.
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