The president is receiving the steroid dexamethasone after two incidents when his bloody oxygen level dropped. But his doctors also announced on Sunday he could be allowed back home to the White House as early as Monday, to continue his treatment there.

The nation and the world are watching for any information about Trump's health and well-being. But what exactly do we know? And who should we listen to?

BBC Newsnight presenter Emily Maitlis and BBC North America editor Jon Sopel have discussed all these issues and more in the latest episode of Americast.

You can listen in here

An opinion poll in the US reported on Sunday found that well over half (65%) of those who responded believe President Trump could have avoided infection if he had taken coronavirus more seriously.

The Ipsos/Reuters poll, which gathered responses from 1,005 US adults - including 596 likely voters - over the previous two days, also found that more than half (55%) did not believe the president was telling the truth about the virus. Only 34% believed he was.

Of those polled, 57% of Americans said they disapproved of Trump's response to the pandemic overall, up about three percentage points from late last week.

They also appear to be largely supportive of curtailing the 2020 presidential race to ensure safety, with 67% in favour of stopping in-person campaign rallies and 59% maintaining that presidential debates should be postponed until Trump recovers.

Among those adults who are expected to cast ballots on 3 November, the poll found that 51% were backing Democratic candidate Joe Biden, while 41% said they were voting for Trump - the remaining 8% were either voting for a third party or undecided.

Only about 61% of voting-age Americans actually voted in the 2016 election.

A White House official says that Trump's doctors cleared his drive past as medically safe.

“The movement was cleared by the medical team as safe to do,” a deputy assistant to the president said.

He told reporters that precautions were taken to protect the staff involved in driving Trump and his motorcade.

Earlier, a doctor at Walter Reed hospital, where Trump is being treated, strongly criticised the excursion, saying that there is very high infection risk inside the car for anyone in contact with the president.

Image source, Reuters

"We're here to tell him that we love him!" - that's what one woman told our reporter Lebo Diseko outside the hospital where President Trump is being treated for coronavirus.

Trump rewarded the crowds of people waving flags and carrying flowers with a surprise drive-by on Sunday evening eastern time.

Barbara, who is African American, explained to our reporter that she believes Trump stands up for Christians in the country and that he has done a lot for black Americans.

"We're cheering for his good health," she explained. "We want him back as soon as possible, so we're here to tell him that we love him, we're praying for him and we need him in America."

Read more from Lebo who spent Sunday talking to the fans who travelled to wish Trump a speedy recovery.

Image source, Getty Images

Throughout the campaign, we've heard from our BBC voter panel - Americans who have been giving us their views on who they'll vote for and why.

Would you like to be one of them? What are the most important issues to you? Why?

If you'd like to get involved, find out more here.

And if you'd like to see what some members of our voter panel have said about Trump's illness, click here.

Image source, Reuters

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden says he will travel to Florida on Monday despite sharing a debate stage with President Trump last Tuesday.

It is possible that the president was contagious with Covid-19 during the event, which took place three days before Trump revealed he tested positive. It takes five days on average from the moment a person is infected for symptoms to start showing, but it can be much longer.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines, external say that anyone exposed to the virus should quarantine for 14 days.

Biden's campaign says he tested negative for the virus again on Sunday, and will continue to take a test before each trip.

He plans to visit a cultural centre in Miami and attend an outdoors event where he will answer questions posed by the public.

At the 90-minute presidential debate on Tuesday, the two candidates stood without masks at significant distance from each other on the stage.

There is mixed reaction to the president's unexpected decision to leave the Walter Reed hospital for a drive past his supporters.

"More than 205,000 Americans are dead. We need leadership. Not photo ops," tweeted the Chairman of the House Democrats Hakeem Jeffries.

Meanwhile right-wing UK politician Nigel Farage, who has been a vocal Trump supporter, praised the president.

"No other Western leader would go and visit the crowds outside their hospital like this. This is why the American people love Trump," he tweeted.

Image source, Get

The US Attorney General Bill Barr will self-isolate "for now" but will probably return to work this week, according the Department of Justice.

Barr has tested negative for coronavirus four times since Friday morning.

He was one of the officials who attended a White House event last week that has come under scrutiny after half a dozen people there tested positive for coronavirus.

He was pictured in close proximity to Trump allies, including former White House adviser Kellyanne Conway, one of the attendees who later tested positive.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, external advises that anyone who comes into close contact (within 1.8m for 15 minutes or more) with someone who tests positive for coronavirus should go into quarantine for 14 days.

Image source, Getty Images

There has been significant confusion about when Donald Trump tested positive for coronavirus and if the information was kept from the public for a period of time.

Now ABC News , externaland the Wall Street Journal, external are reporting that the president had tested positive using White House rapid tests before appearing on a Fox News show on Thursday night.

The White House uses a two-test system - a positive result using a rapid test is followed up by a second test using a method called PCR, which is considered more accurate.

Trump was waiting for the result of the PCR test when he appeared on the Sean Hannity show, ABC News says.

However, the president did tell staff at Fox News that his close aide, Hope Hicks, had tested positive.

At 01:00 eastern time on Friday, the president tweeted that he had tested positive.

Trump announced his plan for a surprise drive outside the Walter Reed hospital in a video he posted on Twitter in the past hour.

In that video he also said his illness is teaching him a lot about coronavirus:

"It’s been a very interesting journey - I learned a lot about Covid-19.

I learned it by really going to school. This is the real school.

This isn’t the ‘let’s read the book’ school. And I get it. And I understand it.

And it’s a very interesting thing, and I’m going to be letting you know about it."

A doctor at the Walter Reed hospital where Donald Trump is being treated has strongly criticised the president's motorcade ride due to infection risk inside the car.

"That Presidential SUV is not only bulletproof, but hermetically sealed against chemical attack. The risk of Covid-19 transmission inside is as high as it gets outside of medical procedures," Dr James Philips tweeted.

He said that those inside the president's car would need to quarantine for 14 days and are at risk of getting sick.

Dr Philips is also an assistant professor of emergency medicine at George Washington University.

Image source, Reuters

The White House has released a statement about Trump's brief drive outside the hospital where he is being treated for Covid-19.

"President Trump took a short, last-minute motorcade ride to wave to his supporters outside, and has now returned to the Presidential Suite inside Walter Reed [Medical Center]," the statement says.

Before going on the drive, Trump tweeted a video saying he was going to "pay a little surprise" to his supporters.

US broadcaster NBC has just tweeted footage of Trump's "little surprise" visit, as he called it, to cheering supporters near the hospital.

As we reported earlier, he took a short drive in his motorcade to wave at the crowd that had gathered outside.

Trump has just taken a short car ride from the hospital to wave at supporters who have gathered outside.

He was spotted in the back of his armoured SUV, wearing a face mask and waving at the crowd.

Just before the trip he tweeted a video from the presidential suite at Walter Reed Medical Center, saying that he would "pay a little surprise to some of the great patriots we have out on the street".

Image source, Reuters

At Sunday's news briefing, Trump's doctor Sean Conley said he didn't reveal earlier that Trump had received oxygen because he was "trying to reflect the upbeat attitude of the team".

Now Alyssa Farah, White House director of strategic communications, says that the administration is striving to be "as transparent as we can" about Trump's health.

"It's a very common medical practice that you want to convey confidence and you want to raise the spirits of the person you're treating," she told Fox News.

She also says that it's "absolutely not" true that Trump is upset with his chief of staff, Mark Meadows, for giving a less optimistic picture of his condition on Saturday.

The president's supporters are making themselves heard outside Walter Reed Medical Center in Maryland, where he has been treated since Friday.

The pavement is crowded with well-wishers and they are making a lot of noise as they rally in support of Trump.

"Very much feels like a soccer parade after a win here outside Walter Reed. Jovial vibe, honks and Trump flags," tweets the BBC's Suzanne Kianpour.

Image source, Reuters

Donald Trump is of course not the only high-profile person affected by coronavirus. Over the year number of politicians, sports stars and artists have also caught Covid-19.

Here's a small selection of those we have reported on in the last few months:

• Former Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi tested positive for the virus and was treated for pneumonia last month
• The UK's current PM Boris Johnson was discharged from hospital in April, after spending a week receiving treatment against the virus, including three days in intensive care. He returned to work after two weeks convalescing
• On Sunday, we reported that one of Japan's most famous fashion designers, Kenzo Takada, had died of the virus in Paris
• Footballer Kylian Mbappe tested positive last month, external, while tennis star Novak Djokovic got the virus , externalin June
• Other high-profile figures who have caught the virus include: Usain Bolt (who tested positive for the virus in August); Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, who said last month he and his family had Covid-19; early on in the pandemic, married actors Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson tested positive for the virus, as did singer and actor Marianne Faithfull.

Image source, Reuters

Mr Trump's National Security Adviser, Robert O'Brien, says a transfer of power from the president to Vice-President Mike Pence is not "on the table right now".

He told CBS's Face the Nation programme, external: "So far the president is in great shape. He's firmly in command of the government of the country."

The vice-president would be handed the powers of the presidency is the president was too ill to work. .

James Gallagher
Health and science correspondent, BBC News

Image source, Reuters

The steroid saves lives by calming the immune system, which can become dangerously overactive in Covid, but needs to be used at the right time. Give it too early and the drug could make things worse by impairing the body’s ability to fight off the virus.

This is not a drug you would usually give in the “mild” stage of the disease.

The Recovery Trial, , externalwhich took place in the UK, showed the benefit kicked in at the point people need oxygen – which Mr Trump briefly did.

The World Health Organization, external translated those findings to advise using the steroid in “severe and critical” cases.

Mr Trump’s blood oxygen levels did drop below 94%, which is one of the National Institutes of Health criteria for "severe illness", external.

However, those low oxygen levels were not sustained and the gap between someone needing transient oxygen support and end-stage Covid is massive.

We do not know the full details of Mr Trump’s condition, but it is hard to imagine you or I would be discharged from hospital while taking dexamethasone and remdesivir and after being given an experimental antibody therapy.

However, we do not have the medical support at the US president’s disposal.

The president is receiving the steroid dexamethasone after two incidents when his bloody oxygen level dropped. But his doctors also announced on Sunday he could be allowed back home to the White House as early as Monday, to continue his treatment there.

The nation and the world are watching for any information about Trump's health and well-being. But what exactly do we know? And who should we listen to?

BBC Newsnight presenter Emily Maitlis and BBC North America editor Jon Sopel have discussed all these issues and more in the latest episode of Americast.

You can listen in here