some breaking news in the last couple of
minutes or so we've been hearing that uh
president trump is now
on his way to the walter reed
hospital military hospital um after his
diagnosis for
coronavirus uh let's go live to our
correspondent
or rather our north america editor john
sopel who's there
just explain why this is happening john
clive it's a dramatic development you
may be able to hear the sound of the
rotor engines
behind me because marine one has just
come into land on the south lawn
of the white house and we understand
that it is to take the president
to walter reed medical center about 15
miles
north of here in an area called bethesda
in washington now it's being stressed
that this is a precautionary measure and
i'm sort of struck by the similarities
by what we heard
a few months ago when boris johnson was
admitted to hospital and people were
saying it was a precautionary measure
the big difference i suspect is that
here at the white house there is a
fully equipped medical center there are
teams of doctors and nurses
who are working 24 7 to assist
in any medical emergency with the
president so they clearly
think they need something that they
cannot provide here
and that will raise a lot of questions
about whether it is mild symptoms
that the president has or something more
serious and so everyone will await
the next medical bulletin with interest
in the meantime
i can hear the rotor blades of marine
one ready to ferry
the president to hospital but john this
does seem to have developed incredibly
quickly because it was only last
night just before the president was
diagnosed with covid that he was giving
television interviews
yeah and so this doesn't it seems to
follow a more serious trajectory
than what you normally expect which is
that symptoms develop they gradually
worsen
over a period of days but the white
house is stressing officials have
confirmed this is what is going to
happen
but they are stressing that it is as a
precautionary measure my question is
when you've got a fully equipped medical
center here why do you need to go to
walter reed but maybe there is a very
innocent explanation
for that at the moment of course the
white house is trying to play this down
he's not trying to get people too
alarmed i think it's interesting and
telling
that they waited for the markets to
close uh before making this clear that
this is what they were going to do
but as we speak the president appears to
be on his way
to the very famous military hospital in
the north of washington
okay john thank you for that update john
sobel there our north america editor