President Donald Trump appeared for the first time on Saturday, July 11, wearing a coronavirus protective mask in public, the day the United States recorded a new record of contamination.

This first masked appearance, during a visit to the Walter Reed military hospital in the outskirts of Washington, has a strong symbolic value in the country at a time when the epidemic is in full expansion especially in southern states like the Florida or Texas.

Since the virus appeared, Donald Trump had avoided showing himself in public with a mask, even though the wearing of this protection is recommended by the American health authorities.

He had thus contributed to making this issue an issue of political controversy, because the refusal to wear the mask is seen in part of American society as an affirmation of the individual freedom of the citizen vis-à-vis the federal and international authorities. 

"It depends on the time" 

On Saturday evening, Mr. Trump put on a dark blue mask to visit wounded combatants at the Walter Reed Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland, near Washington.  

 "When you speak with soldiers who have just come out of the operating table, I think it is very good to wear a mask," he told reporters before the visit. "I have never been against masks, but I am convinced that it depends on the time and the place."

The United States is by far the country most heavily affected by the pandemic with more than 134,000 dead - 134,729 according to the count made Saturday by Johns Hopkins University. According to figures from this university of Baltimore which refers, the country recorded on Saturday a new record of contamination with 66,528 cases in 24 hours.

With AFP

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