His impending return comes after the White House doctor said Trump was no longer at risk of transmitting the coronavirus but did not say explicitly whether Trump had tested negative for it. The president insisted he was now “immune” from the virus, a claim that was impossible to prove and added to the unknowns about the president’s health.

“I’m immune,” Trump said in an interview on Fox News Channel’s “Sunday Morning Futures.” “The president is in very good shape to fight the battles.”

In a memo released Saturday night by the White House, Navy Cmdr. Dr. Sean Conley said that Trump met the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention criteria for safely discontinuing isolation and that by “currently recognized standards” he was no longer considered a transmission risk. The memo did not declare Trump had tested negative for the virus.

Sensitive lab tests — such as the PCR test cited in the doctor’s statements — detect virus in swab samples taken from the nose and throat. Some medical experts had been skeptical that Trump could be declared free of the risk of transmitting the virus so early in the course of his illness. Just 10 days since an initial diagnosis of infection, there was no way to know for certain that someone was no longer contagious, they said.

His return to full-fledged rallies will be in Florida on Monday, a comeback that comes with the president facing stubborn deficits in the polls. The Trump campaign and White House has not indicated that any additional safety measures will be taken to prevent the transmission of the virus among those traveling on Air Force One, at the event site or at rallies scheduled for Pennsylvania and Iowa later in the week.

Campaign officials have signaled that Trump will be traveling nearly every day the rest of the campaign, and sometimes making more than one stop, an aggressive schedule for a 74-year-old who was hospitalized just days ago.

“The comments attributed to me without my permission in the GOP campaign ad were taken out of context,” Fauci said in a statement, adding that he had been talking broadly about public health officials’ response to the pandemic. “In my five decades of public service, I have never publicly endorsed political candidates.”

Tim Murtaugh, Trump campaign communications director, responded by saying that “these are Dr. Fauci’s own words” and said they were praising the administration’s response.

On Sunday, Trump asserted in a tweet that he had “total and complete sign off from White House Doctors” to fully return to the campaign trail, insisting he can no longer spread the disease to others and was impervious to getting sick again.

That’s far from certain, and Twitter later flagged his tweet with a fact-check warning.

Although there’s evidence that reinfection is unlikely for at least three months even for those with a mild case of COVID-19, very few diseases leave people completely immune for life. Antibodies are only one piece of the body’s defenses, and they naturally wane over time.

“Certainly it’s presumptuous to say it’s a lifetime,” said Dr. Albert Ko, an infectious disease specialist and department chairman at the Yale School of Public Health.

As to whether Trump could still be contagious, Ko said the White House appeared to be following CDC guidelines for when it is appropriate to end isolation after mild to moderate cases of COVID-19.

But Ko cautioned that those who have had severe cases of the diseases should isolate for 20 days. He noted that Trump was treated with the steroid dexamethasone, which is normally reserved for patients with severe COVID.

Dr. Marc Lipsitch, an infectious disease expert at the Harvard School of Public Health, said the doctor’s letter did not provide enough information to be assured that Trump was no longer infectious to others. He noted that Trump’s use of steroids could prolong viral shedding so the CDC’s 10-day standard may or may not apply.

“It is a judgment call,” Lipsitch said.

The White House memo followed Trump’s first public appearance since returning to the White House after being treated for the coronavirus at a military hospital. Hundreds of people gathered Saturday afternoon on the South Lawn for a Trump address on his support for law enforcement, from a White House balcony.

Trump took off a mask moments after he emerged on the balcony to address the crowd on the lawn below, his first step back onto the public stage with just more than three weeks to go until Election Day. He flouted, once more, the safety recommendations of his own government days after acknowledging that he was on the brink of “bad things” from the virus and claiming that his bout with the illness brought him a better understanding of it.

His return was a brief one. With bandages visible on his hands, probably from an intravenous injection, Trump spoke for 18 minutes, far less than his normal hour-plus rallies. He appeared healthy, if perhaps a little hoarse, as he delivered what was, for all intents and purposes, a short version of his campaign speech despite the executive mansion setting.

“I’m feeling great,” Trump told the crowd, before declaring that the pandemic, which has killed more than 210,000 Americans, was “disappearing” despite signs of surging cases in several states.

In either an act of defiance or simply tempting fate, officials organized the event just steps from the Rose Garden, where exactly two weeks ago the president held another large gathering to formally announce his nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. That gathering is now being eyed as a potential COVID-19 superspreader as more than two dozen people in attendance have contracted the virus.

The Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services said in a news release that it was in the process of migrating all COVID-19 testing and case data into one new consolidated system. Missouri incorrectly reported Saturday on its coronavirus website more than 5,000 new COVID-19 cases, more than double the previous single-day record.

The agency said Sunday that it was working urgently to resolve the issue and would update its website with the correct numbers once that was done. It said the problems with the data were limited to cumulative reporting on its Show Me Strong Covid-19 Public Health Dashboard.

“One key aim of transitioning to the new EpiTrax system is to standardize data management, and, thereby, prevent data reporting issues in the future,” the health department statement said.

“We are committed to continually improving our practices,” Williams said. “While our updated internal processes serve the purpose of reporting data with greater granularity, finalizing the new approach to replace manual entry presents our team with technical challenges that we are working through.”

MetroSTL.com staff contributed to this report.

“To me, it is not just a dog whistle. It’s a bullhorn,” said Lindsey Simmons, a Democrat running for the U.S. House in Missouri’s 4th District against incumbent Republican Vicky Hartzler. “They are directly saying, ‘Hey, be afraid of Nicole Galloway, she is pro-crime, because look at the Black people she hangs out with, and they’re pro-crime, too.’ That is just incredibly, overtly racist.”

Parson’s campaign is not involved in the website. His campaign did not return email messages seeking comment.

Uniting Missouri Chairman John Hancock denied any racist intent, saying the people pictured meet two criteria: They support Galloway, and they “hold documented radical anti-law enforcement views.”

“The website simply compiles unedited statements from Nicole Galloway’s allies advocating for defunding the police, freeing convicted cop killers, and even setting fire to a police station,” Hancock said in an email.

“If Nicole doesn’t want to face criticism for endorsing candidates that want to defund the police, then she should rescind her endorsements — it’s as simple as that,” Hancock said.

Galloway campaign spokesman Kevin Donohoe said in a statement that the website was evidence that Parson’s allies “are desperately trying to divide Missourians to distract from Governor Parson’s failures on crime, law and order, healthcare, and the pandemic.”

Bush and Aldridge are longtime activist leaders in St. Louis. Bush pulled a stunning political upset in August, defeating 10-term incumbent Democratic U.S. Rep. William Lacy Clay in Missouri’s 1st District primary. She’s expected to win easily in November. Aldridge represents a St. Louis district in the Missouri House. Smith was a five-term state representative who was named acting chair of the Missouri Democratic Party in July.

The site includes a tweet from Bush that reads, “We need to defund the police and make sure that money goes back into the communities that need it.” It cites a June story on KSDK-TV’s website in which Aldridge said activist demands included defunding police and payment of reparations for past racism.

The site references a news article that said Smith had signed a letter calling for the “immediate freedom” of a man serving life imprisonment without parole after killing a Philadelphia police officer in 1981.

“The message is, ‘Galloway is not on your side; she’s on their side,’” Hayward said. “I think it’s pretty heavy-handed, and I think there’s a racist subtext that’s not hard to see and is not subtle.”

Opinion writers for the state’s two largest newspapers also have taken exception to the website.

A Star editorial on Wednesday accused Uniting Missouri of “using an ugly tactic in their campaign” against Galloway. Messenger wrote on Tuesday that it wasn’t enough for Parson to stand on his own record as sheriff.

“It’s like his campaign, or the one run by his sidekicks, is the little boy in the movie ‘Sixth Sense,’ with a little racist twist: ‘I see Black people,’” Messenger wrote.

Barrett, 48, a federal appeals court judge, draws on faith and family in her prepared opening remarks for the hearings, which begin Monday as the country is in the grips of the coronavirus pandemic. She says courts “should not try” to make policy, but leave those decisions to the government’s political branches. She believes she would bring “a few new perspectives” as the first mother of school-age children on the nine-member court.

“I have been nominated to fill Justice Ginsburg’s seat, but no one will ever take her place,” Barrett says in her remarks to the Senate Judiciary Committee. The Associated Press obtained a copy of her statement on Sunday.

Barrett says she has resolved to maintain the same perspective as her mentor, the late Justice Antonin Scalia, who was “devoted to his family, resolute in his beliefs, and fearless of criticism.”

Republicans who control the Senate are moving at a breakneck pace to seat Barrett before the Nov. 3 election, in time to hear a high-profile challenge to the Affordable Care Act and any election-related challenges that may follow the voting.

Another reason for moving quickly: It’s unclear whether the election results would make it harder to confirm Barrett before the end of the year if Democrat Joe Biden were to win the White House and Democrats were to gain seats in the Senate.

California Sen. Kamala Harris, the Democratic vice presidential nominee who is also a committee member, plans to participate remotely from her Senate office due to coronavirus concerns, her spokesman said Sunday.

Harris and other key Democrats said the hearings should not move forward without plans to test people attending, including senators, for coronavirus.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., told the AP that the committee’s chairman, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., has “an obligation to be tested” for COVID-19 before the hearing begins because he has been exposed to those with the disease.

Graham told Fox News Channel’s “Sunday Morning Futures” that he took a test last week. “I am negative,” he said, adding that “anybody that has a concern about showing up can virtually interview Judge Barrett. She will be there. I will be there. … We’re going to work safely.”

The hearings are taking place less than a month after the death of Ginsburg gave Trump the chance to entrench a conservative majority on the court with his third justice.

Democrats have pressed in vain to delay the hearings, first because of the proximity to the election and now the virus threat. No Supreme Court has ever been confirmed so close to a presidential election.

The country will get an extended look at Barrett over three days, beginning with her opening statement late Monday and hours of questioning Tuesday and Wednesday.

Barrett is telling senators that “courts are not designed to solve every problem or right every wrong in our public life.”

“Policy decisions and value judgments of government must be made by the political branches,” she said in the prepared remarks. “The public should not expect courts to do so, and courts should not try.”

A mother of seven, she also says she uses her children as a test when deciding cases, asking herself how she would view the decision if one of her children were the party she was ruling against.

“Even though I would not like the result, would I understand that the decision was fairly reasoned and grounded in the law?” she says.

A Catholic, she says she believes in the “power of prayer,” and she thanks those who have reached out with messages of support.

Ordinarily, she would get to show off her large family. But the White House event announcing her nomination, at which most of the audience did not wear masks, has been labeled a “superspreader” for the coronavirus.

More than two dozen people linked to the Sept. 26 Rose Garden event have contracted COVID-19 since then, including Republican Sens. Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Mike Lee of Utah, both members of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Barrett and her family went maskless at the event. Barrett and her husband, Jesse, tested positive for the virus earlier this year and recovered, two administration officials have said.

Tillis and Lee both said they hoped to be recovered and be present for the hearing.

Democrats already were enraged that Republicans are moving so quickly after their actions four years ago kept a seat open after Scalia died in February 2016, before that year’s election, and President Barack Obama nominated Judge Merrick Garland to take his place. The Senate did not grant Garland even a hearing, much less a vote.

Outside groups are pushing Democrats to make a strong case against what they call an illegitimate confirmation so close to the election, when people are already voting in some states.

“The Democrats have a very strong hand to play politically, even if they do not have the votes to stop it,” said Brian Fallon, executive director of Demand Justice, which advocates against right-leaning nominees.

“The public is with them that this shouldn’t happen before the election.”

Democrats have made clear that they will press Barrett on health care, especially with the imminent Supreme Court arguments, and abortion, among other issues where her vote could push the court further to the right.

“I intend to, and I think everybody else on the Democratic side, will focus on the fact that she is being pushed on to the Supreme Court just in time for the Nov. 10 hearing on the Affordable Care Act,” Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, said. “That leaves millions and millions of families totally in the cold in regard to health care.”

Barrett also is the most openly anti-abortion Supreme Court nominee in decades, and her vote could provide a majority to restrict if not overturn abortion rights. She also has voiced skepticism about some gun control laws.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., pointed to a dissenting opinion Barrett wrote last year in favor of allowing people convicted of nonviolent crimes to own guns. Federal law currently has a blanket prohibition on gun ownership by convicted felons. “She is extreme on this issue,’’ Blumenthal said at a news conference.

Republicans will highlight Barrett’s belief in sticking to the text of laws and the original meaning of constitutional provisions, both Scalia trademarks as well.

Her personal story also will be a frequent topic of conversation when Republicans are asking questions.

“She has proven a mom really can do anything,” Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, said after meeting with Barrett last week.

He cited rising admissions for the coronavirus in the St. Louis area and throughout Missouri, which has recorded another near-record number of hospitalizations.

“Admission rates at these levels just can’t be sustained over time,” Garza warned.

“We’ve climbed to a significantly challenging level.”

The admission rate is heading up, with 50 new admissions Friday at the task force’s hospitals – one of the highest figures since the middle of August, he noted. Friday’s numbers showed 279 confirmed COVID-19 cases in the hospitals; 69 were in ICUs, with 41 of them on ventilators. An additional 111 people were hospitalized with suspected cases of the coronavirus with; 18 in ICUs and four of them on ventilators.

Missouri’s highest rates of infection are now in rural counties. Garza pointed out that those are areas that have no mask mandates. Urban areas, including the city of St. Louis, St. Louis County and Kansas City, have had such mandates in place.

The city of St. Louis has had a total of 7,409 confirmed cases as of Saturday, with 119 suspected cases and 200 deaths.

Garza said several times in his press conference, as he has said all along: Wear a mask, wash your hands, use sanitizer, stay away from large gatherings and at least six feet away from other people.

He added another specific direction: Wear the face mask properly, NOT BELOW THE NOSE.

“Until we all do these things regularly, we will continue to see hospitalizations and case counts stubbornly high within the region,” he said.

This is even more important as cooler weather arrives and as influenza season takes hold, Garza explained.

A continued upsurge in cases of COVID-19 coronavirus cases at the same time as a burst of flu could overwhelm the area’s hospitals.

A questioner at the press conference asked Garza, can hospitals cope?

His response: “It depends.”

Is this year’s flu vaccine a good match, so the number of people needing hospital care can be minimized? We don’t yet know. Are people taking measures that decrease their vulnerability to both viruses? Some are; some aren’t. So there’s no definitive answer.

In the worst-case scenario, with a bad flu season plus continued coronavirus, hospitals may have to go back to limiting visitors, postponing elective surgeries and so on, Garza acknowledged.

Garza pointed out that the Southern Hemisphere was having a “remarkably mild” flu season and that they attributed that to all the coronavirus mitigation measures people there are following.

Another question was about restaurants’ hope of staying open into the cold weather by using outdoor tents for outdoor dining. Garza explained that health departments are in charge of regulating such activities. Health officials must decide whether to treat such tent operations as indoor or outdoor.

Without replying explicitly, Garza made his own opinion clear: Think of camping, he suggested, and the palpable difference between sleeping in the open versus inside a tent. Or think how, when someone smokes a cigarette, the smoke can be diffused outside but will stay inside a tent, affecting the smoker and anyone else there, too.

Tents can act more like indoor structures, Garza said, because of limited air flow.

Trump took off a mask moments after he emerged on the White House balcony to address the crowd on the lawn below, his first step back onto the public stage with just more than three weeks to go until Election Day. He flouted, once more, the safety recommendations of his own government just days after acknowledging that he was on the brink of “bad things” from the virus and claiming that his bout with the illness brought him a better understanding of it.

And five days after Trump returned from Walter Reed Medical Center, his health remained a mystery as White House officials refused to reveal if he had tested negative or if he was still at risk of spreading the virus.

His return was a brief one.

With bandages visible on his hands, likely from an intravenous injection, Trump spoke for 18 minutes, far less than at his normal hour-plus rallies. He appeared healthy, if perhaps a little hoarse, as he delivered what was, for all intents and purposes, a short version of his campaign speech despite the executive mansion setting.

Though billed as an official event, Trump offered no policy proposals and instead delivered the usual attacks on Democrat Joe Biden while praising law enforcement to a crowd of several hundred, most of whom wore masks while few adhered to social distancing guidelines.

“I’m feeling great,” said Trump, who said he was thankful for their good wishes and prayers as he recovered. He then declared that the pandemic, which has killed more than 210,000 Americans, was “disappearing” even though he is still recovering from the virus.

In either an act of defiance or simply tempting fate, officials organized the crowd just steps from the Rose Garden, where exactly two weeks ago the president held another large gathering to formally announce his nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. That event is now being eyed as a potential COVID-19 superspreader as more than two dozen people in attendance have contracted the virus.

Trump had hoped to hold campaign rallies this weekend but settled for the White House event. But even as his health remained unclear, he planned to ramp up his travel with a rally in Florida on Monday, followed by trips to Pennsylvania and Iowa on subsequent days. It was not clear if Trump posed a risk to those he would fly with on Air Force One or encounter at the rally sites.

Before the speech, White House officials said they had no information to release on whether the president was tested for COVID-19, meaning he made his first public appearance without the White House verifying that he’s no longer contagious.

Security was stepped up around the White House before the event, which was called a “peaceful protest for law & order” and predominantly attended by Black and Latino supporters. Police and the Secret Service closed surrounding streets to vehicles and shut down Lafayette Square, the park near the White House that has long been a gathering place for public protest.

As questions linger about his health — and Democratic opponent Joe Biden steps up his own campaigning — Trump has more frequently called into radio and TV programs to speak with conservative interviewers, hoping to make up for lost time with just over three weeks until Election Day and millions already voting.

Biden’s campaign said he again tested negative on Saturday for COVID-19. Biden was potentially exposed to the coronavirus during his Sept. 29 debate with Trump, who announced his positive diagnosis barely 48 hours after the debate.

The president had not been seen in public — other than in White House-produced videos — since his return five days ago from the military hospital, where he received experimental treatments for the coronavirus.

On Saturday, all attendees were required to bring masks or were provided with them, and were given temperature checks and asked to fill out a brief questionnaire. Some in the crowd removed their mask to listen to Trump.

Trump’s Monday event in Sanford, Florida, what he’s described as a “BIG RALLY,” was originally scheduled to be held on Oct. 2, the day after he tested positive. Ahead of his Saturday event, Trump used Twitter to share news articles about problems with mail-in ballots in New Jersey, Ohio and Texas. Trump has repeatedly made unsubstantiated claims that universal mail-in voting is beset by widespread fraud.

Trump’s return to public activity came as Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government’s top infectious-disease expert, cautioned the White House again to avoid large-scale gatherings of people without masks.

He said of the Barrett event in an interview with The Associated Press, “I was not surprised to see a superspreader event given the circumstances.” That means “crowded, congregate setting, not wearing masks. It is not surprising to see an outbreak,” he said.

District of Columbia virus restrictions prohibit outdoor gatherings larger than 50 people, although that rule has not been strictly enforced. Masks are mandatory outdoors for most people, but the regulations don’t apply on federal land, and the Trump White House has openly flouted them for months.

Confined to the White House as he recovers, Trump spent sizeable chunks of the past few days making the rounds of friendly conservative media, calling in to Fox News host Sean Hannity on Thursday night and spending two hours live on air with radio host Rush Limbaugh on Friday in what his campaign billed as a “radio rally.”

Holding court on his reelection battle, his fight against the coronavirus and revived negotiations with Democrats to pass an economic stimulus bill, Trump made a direct appeal to his base of loyal supporters, whom he needs to turn out to the polls in droves.

In a Friday night interview on Fox’s Tucker Carlson’s show, Trump was asked if he has been retested for COVID-19.

“I have been retested, and I haven’t even found out numbers or anything yet. But I’ve been retested, and I know I’m at either the bottom of the scale or free,” he said.

White House officials, however, have declined to answer when Trump last tested negative for the virus before his diagnosis or release detailed information about lung scans taken while Trump was hospitalized.

Aides to the president insist that it is safe for Trump to return to his regular activities, including campaigning. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines call for the infected to wait at least 10 days from the onset of symptoms, Fauci noted in the AP interview. That onset for Trump was Oct. 1, according to his doctors.

The president’s White House physician, Navy Cmdr. Sean Conley, added that Trump was showing no evidence of his illness progressing or adverse reactions to the aggressive course of therapy he has received.

While reports of reinfection in COVID-19 victims are rare, the CDC recommends that even people who recover from the disease continue to wear masks, stay distanced and follow other precautions. It was unclear if Trump, who has refused mask wearing in most settings, would abide by that guidance as he resumes his campaign.

Parson and Democratic rival Nicole Galloway, along with Libertarian candidate Rik Combs and Green Party candidate Jerome Bauer, spoke at the forum in Columbia hosted by the Missouri Press Association and KOMU-TV.

Galloway, the state auditor, is the only Democrat holding statewide office in Missouri. She used her opening statement and several other opportunities to attack Parson’s handling of the virus that has sickened 139,164 Missourians and killed 2,395 since the pandemic began. Those numbers included 2,008 new confirmed cases announced Friday and 136 new deaths, though the state health department said all of those deaths occurred prior to October but were just reported.

Galloway called for “a complete reset” – one driven by science and data – on the state’s approach to COVID-19.

“He’s had his chance,” Galloway said of Parson. “He’s failed the test of leadership. He’s just in over his head.”

Since the onset of the virus, Parson has urged Missourians to wear masks, practice social distancing and practice hand hygiene. But unlike many governors, he has not issued any mandates. Several local cities and counties have instead issued their own stricter guidelines since Parson allowed Missouri to reopen June 16.

Parson lauded his “balanced approach” that he said has brought the death rate down significantly — currently 0.7 percent of people infected, from 8 percent in April. Meanwhile, he said, the state’s 7 percent unemployment rate is far below what experts had predicted, and more than 8 in 10 Missouri school children are back in the classroom.

“You’ve got to be able to deal with the virus,” Parson said. “You’ve got to be able to deal with the economy. You’ve got to be able to get kids back in school safely.”

But Galloway cited some concerning statistics, such as a big spike in hospitalizations, which reached record daily totals multiple times in September and October. The number of people hospitalized in Missouri on June 15 was 590; on Friday, it was 1,303. Much of the spike has been in rural areas.

“We are living the governor’s coronavirus-fighting strategy right now,” Galloway said. “It’s not working.”

Parson is a former Polk County sheriff with a strong focus on law enforcement in a year when both St. Louis and Kansas City are seeing big jumps in killings as well as non-fatal shootings. He has stood firmly with police amid racial injustice protests, and pledged he will “continue to support the men and women who wear those uniforms every day.”

Galloway, 38, said she also supports police but wants to add funding for things including health care and education that address systemic problems before they lead to crime. She also denied Republican claims that she wants to defund police.

But Parson noted that Galloway has the support of people who do advocate defunding police, including Cori Bush, an activist and St. Louis Democrat who upset longtime U.S. Rep. William Lacy Clay in Missouri’s 1st District primary in August and is heavily favored to win in November.

“You might not say it here in this forum with everybody watching, but it does matter who you run with,” Parson told Galloway. “It does matter when you run with those people who do want to defund the police in this state.”

Neither Parson nor Galloway was initially elected to their current jobs.

Galloway was the Boone County treasurer in 2015 when state Auditor Tom Schweich died. Then-Gov. Jay Nixon appointed Galloway to fill the remainder of Schweich’s term. She defeated Republican challenger Sandra McDowell by about 6 percentage points in the 2018 election.

Parson is a former state legislator who ran successfully for lieutenant governor in 2016. He stepped into the state’s top job after fellow Republican Eric Greitens resigned in June 2018.

Greitens had been charged earlier in 2018 with felony invasion of privacy in St. Louis for allegedly taking a compromising photo of a woman during a 2015 affair. The charge was later dropped, but Greitens also faced ethics investigations prior to his resignation.

The forum had been scheduled for Sept. 25 but was postponed until Friday after Parson and his wife tested positive for the coronavirus. Neither he nor his wife, Teresa, became seriously ill.

FBI and local officials in several states have been conducting drills, running through worse-case scenarios, setting up command centers to improve coordination on reports of violence and voter intimidation, and issuing public warnings that any crime that threatens the sanctity of a Nov. 3 vote will not be tolerated.

The efforts are broader and more public-facing than in past years as fears grow over the potential for violent clashes in cities across the United States. Law enforcement officials say they are not responding to any specific threats or information but are preparing for a host of different scenarios that could play out.

Tension is especially high given the increased political polarization and months of mass demonstrations against racial injustice that have seen violence by the left and right. Gun sales are way up. Six men were arrested after federal officials said they plotted to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, D-Mich., at her vacation home. Experts are concerned that right-wing extremists will be emboldened by Trump’s recent refusal to clearly denounce the Proud Boys, a neo-fascist group, and instead tell them to “stand back and stand by.”

Trump has spent months suggesting without evidence that the election could be rigged. His call to supporters to “go into the polls and watch very carefully” has election officials worried about that unofficial or self-appointed “monitors” could chaos and conflict at voting places.

An FBI official said the agency was considering the current climate of the country in its preparations to ensure safety at the polls, as well as working with other agencies to protect the voting system. The official would not discuss the plans publicly and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

Adding to the alarm is the fact this election will be the first in nearly 40 years in which the Republican National Committee isn’t barred from coordinated poll-monitoring activities. Democrats fear that could open the door to voter intimidation, the reason the courts have largely prohibited Republicans from poll monitoring since the early 1980s.

So far, experts who study extremism say they haven’t seen any open discussion online of plans to instigate violence or interfere with voting.

Elon University professor Megan Squire, a computer scientist who studies online extremism, said the far-right extremists she tracks on social media appear to be preparing for trouble — a “prepper mindset” — without citing specifics.

“They’re waiting for something to pop off,” she said. “It’s like a simmering kind of feeling.”

She said the mindset was particularly keen among supporters of boogaloo, a loose, anti-government, pro-gun extremist online network. Boogaloo adherents have shown up at protests against COVID-19 lockdown orders and protests over racial injustice, carrying rifles and wearing tactical gear.

In one of the internet forums Squire follows, a boogaloo supporter recently discussed plans to stock up on water, food, gasoline and generators in case “infrastructure goes down and supply lines are cut off.”

Squire also said the Proud Boys, a group known for inciting street violence at rallies in the Pacific Northwest and elsewhere, appear to be emboldened by Trump’s comments, as do less organized and strident figures posting on Facebook.

The deadly shooting by a heavily armed teenager during a protest in Kenosha, Wis., in August has fueled “pro-vigilantism” attitudes among more mainstream conservatives, Squire said.

And halfway through 2020, just over 19 million FBI background checks have been done, more than all of 2012 and each of the years before that. July hit an all-time high. Background checks are the key barometer of gun sales, but the FBI’s monthly figures also incorporate checks for permits that some states require to carry a firearm. Each background check also could be for the sale of more than one gun.

The Justice Department’s civil rights division is responsible for enforcing federal voting rights laws and tasks U.S. attorney’s offices with appointing special election coordinators to handle voting rights cases. The federal government has for decades sent prosecutors and federal observers to polling places to ensure compliance with federal law.

Local offices from New Mexico to Florida have been prepping, holding tabletop exercises and pouring over potential security threats.

But their jobs are especially fraught this year in part over concerns of politicization. Attorney General William Barr has repeatedly suggested without evidence that could be widespread mail-in voter fraud, though there is little to back that up.

This year, officials from a number of federal law enforcement agencies will be coordinating on Election Day at the FBI’s Strategic Information and Operations Center, a global command center at FBI headquarters, people familiar with the matter said.

Justice Department prosecutors from different parts of the agency, including the civil rights and national security divisions, will be on hand to monitor incidents and help coordinate a federal response in the event of violence and threats to election infrastructure or cyberattacks, as well as high-profile incidents at polling places, said the people, who were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

The Justice Department and Homeland Security Department have sent additional personnel to cities where violence has cropped up during protests. The National Guard has designated military police units in Arizona and Alabama to serve as rapid reaction forces so they can respond quickly to any potential unrest.

But the first line of response on Election Day will be local law enforcement.

Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner has launched a hotline that rings directly to assistant district attorneys, who will send detectives to investigate reports of voter suppression or intimidation. He said this week his office will not allow armed groups at the city’s polling places amid growing concerns about voter intimidation by vigilante groups aiming to “protect the election.” Such groups have caused violence at demonstrations.

But Oren Segal, vice president of the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism, said he had not seen any specific campaigns for groups intending to target polling stations.

“A lot of the chatter that you see is going to be hyperbole, and one of the things we don’t want to do is amplify hyperbole,” he said.

Segal said white supremacists often turn to violence “when they feel like their culture is being taken away,” while militias “tend to get more antsy when they think their guns are being taken away.” Now he sees a possible threat from a loose coalition of vigilantes and other armed extremists who “think that their election is going to be taken away.”

Most people with COVID-19 can stop isolating and be around others about 10 days after they first showed symptoms, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That’s provided their symptoms have improved, they have not had a fever for 24 hours and are no longer on any medication to reduce a high temperature. But there’s no way to know for certain that someone is no longer contagious so soon after falling ill, experts say.

“At this point, there’s no diagnostic test that tells you whether a person that’s infected remains infectious,” said Dr. Benjamin Pinsky, who leads Stanford University’s virology labs. “There is absolutely a chain of unknowns.”

According to Trump’s latest medical update, he completed his COVID-19 treatment on Thursday and had responded “extremely well.” Earlier in the day, Trump said he was still taking dexamethasone, a steroid that can reduce fevers. In Thursday’s update, Dr. Sean Conley, said Saturday was day 10 after Trump’s Oct. 1 diagnosis and that he anticipated the president’s safe return to public events “at that time.”

Trump’s aides were weighing travel options for the president, including trips for small events next week. In a telephone interview with Fox Business, Trump said Thursday: “I think I’m better to the point where I’d love to do a rally tonight.” He also said, “I don’t think I’m contagious at all.”

Since his return to the White House Monday evening, only a few staffers — and no reporters — have laid eyes on the president, who has announced updates to his condition via Twitter and a few online videos. His doctors haven’t held a press conference since Trump left the hospital, only releasing statements with limited information.

“We who are watching from the outside only have intimations, I’d even call them hints” about Trump’s health and when he might not be contagious, said Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

Earlier this week, the president’s doctors suggested they would work closely with military medical research facilities and other laboratories on “advanced diagnostic testing” to determine when the president was no longer contagious, but did not elaborate. They have not released any details about his test results, including when Trump last had a negative virus test before he got sick.

“So, if the president goes 10 days without symptoms, and they do the tests that we were talking about, then you could make the assumption, based on good science, that he is not infected,” Fauci said Thursday on MSNBC.

Sensitive lab tests — such as the PCR test — detect virus in swab samples taken from the nose and throat. Using these, the president’s medical team could hypothetically measure and track the amount of virus in samples over time, said Dr. William Morice, who oversees laboratories at the Mayo Clinic.

“If they did daily testing, you could watch it go down,” Morice said. “If his viral load is low, the chance he can spread the virus is low as well.”

Another potential strategy: Take the president’s samples and try to get the virus to replicate in a cell culture, which would indicate it’s still active. This approach would be less sensitive than molecular tests and sometimes doesn’t work. And it wouldn’t be scalable, or safe, to use it more widely for other COVID-19 patients.

“It would take much longer, cost much more and we don’t have that many laboratories that can do it,” Schaffner said.

There is a third possibility: Novel tests available at some research labs that look for minute molecular evidence that the virus is still replicating in cells. But the technology is still too new to be used to rule out if someone is infectious, Pinsky said.

“You’re not going to get perfection with any of these tests,” said Gigi Gronvall, of Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. “That’s why you need to think about other mechanisms of public health control” such as wearing masks, washing hands and keeping socially distant to stop the spread of coronavirus.

The chair of the nonpartisan Commission on Presidential Debates said on CNN that the final debate, scheduled for Oct. 22, is still slated to go on in person as planned — but that Trump’s campaign hadn’t yet said whether he’d participate. Biden said he would attend the event regardless of Trump’s plans.

But next Thursday’s debate seemed to be gone.

The whipsaw day began with an announcement from the commission that the town hall-style affair set for Oct. 15 in Miami, would be held virtually. The commission cited health concerns following Trump’s infection as the reason for the change.

Trump, who is eager to return to the campaign trail despite uncertainty about his health, said he wouldn’t participate if the debate wasn’t in person. Biden’s campaign then suggested the event be delayed a week until Oct. 22, which is when the third and final debate was already scheduled.

Next, Trump countered again, agreeing to a debate on Oct. 22 — but only if face to face — and asking that a third contest be added on Oct. 29, just before the election. But Biden’s advisers rejected squaring off that late in the campaign.

The debate commission, which has the unenviable task of finding common ground between the competing campaigns, has come under scrutiny already after the first debate between Trump and Biden deteriorated, with the president frequently interrupting his opponent and the moderator unable to take control.

Biden moved quickly to make sure he would still appear in front of a television audience next week. Instead of debating Trump on Thursday, he will take part in a town hall sponsored by ABC News. As he campaigned in Arizona, Biden said he would indeed attend the Oct. 22 debate, scheduled for Nashville, Tenn.

“We agreed to three debates back in the summer,” Biden said. “I’m showing up. I’ll be there. And if, in fact, he shows up, fine. If he doesn’t, fine.”

For Trump, who is recovering from COVID-19 at the White House after spending three days in the hospital, the health-induced changes are an unwelcome disruption to his effort to shift focus away from a virus that has killed more than 210,000 Americans this year.

In an interview with Fox Business anchor Maria Bartiromo shortly after the commission’s announcement, Trump insisted he was in “great shape” and called the idea of a virtual debate a “joke.”

“I’m not going to do a virtual debate,” he declared.

The president’s campaign manager, Bill Stepien, said Trump would stage a rally rather than debate next Thursday, though it’s not yet clear if he will be well enough to do that.

With less than four weeks until Election Day and with millions of voters casting early ballots, pressure is building on Trump to turn around a campaign that is trailing Biden nationally and in most battlegrounds, where the margin is narrower. A debate before an audience of tens of millions of television viewers could provide that reset.

But another debate could also expose Trump to political risks. GOP strategists say the party’s support began eroding after his seething performance against Biden last week when he didn’t clearly denounce a white supremacist group.

Trump’s apparent unwillingness to change his style to win back voters he needs — particularly women — was on display again Thursday during his Fox Business interview when he referred to Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris as a “monster.”

Campaigning with Harris in Arizona, Biden called Trump’s characterization of the first Black woman on a major party’s presidential ticket “despicable” and added that it was “so beneath the office of the presidency.”

This would not be the first time Trump has skipped a debate. During the 2016 Republican primary, he boycotted the last debate before Iowa’s first-in-the nation’s caucuses, holding a fundraiser for veterans instead — a move he later speculated may have contributed to his loss in the state.

Trump fell ill with the virus on Oct. 1, just 48 hours after sharing a stage with Biden in person during the first presidential debate in Cleveland. While the two candidates remained a dozen feet apart, Trump’s infection sparked health concerns for Biden and sent him to undergo multiple COVID-19 tests before returning to the campaign trail. His campaign announced Thursday that Biden had undergone his fifth such test and was found to be negative.

Trump was still contagious with the virus when he was discharged from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on Monday, but his doctor said Thursday that he had “completed his course of therapy” and could resume campaigning this weekend. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, those with mild to moderate symptoms of COVID-19 can be contagious for as many as — and should isolate for at least — 10 days.

Rozanski’s letter to parishioners published Oct. 1 in the archdiocese’s newspaper is similar to others written by Roman Catholic leaders across the country, following guidance from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Rozanski acknowledged that some Catholics would like their pastors to tell them how to vote.

“The Church doesn’t answer that question for anyone, and neither will I, and neither should any pastor,” the archbishop said.  “It’s a decision for the conscience of each person, and I’m not called to replace anyone’s conscience — that’s a place where each of us stands alone before God. What I am called to do, and every pastor is called to help with, is to form consciences in accord with Catholic teaching.”

“If you don’t hold that abortion is the preeminent moral issue of our time, and if you don’t struggle to justify voting for a candidate whose record or policy would favor or even expand abortion, then you probably aren’t forming a Catholic conscience in preparation to vote,” Rozanski wrote.

But he said voters should not dismiss or ignore the church’s teaching on other important issues such as race, immigration and the environment.

Rozanski did not endorse any candidate or party.

He reminded Catholics, “Jesus is not running for office. The day after the election our primary mission will be the same: to proclaim and give witness to the Gospel in all its fullness. The winners will make some parts of that easier, and some parts incredibly hard. Either way, we’ll have a lot of work to do.”

He noted the increased dissension in American society, and he advised: “Let’s talk to one another differently in the coming month. Let’s listen to each other more deeply — to the reasons, the hurts and the hopes.”

Rozanski wrapped up by saying, “We have too much work to do together to let the powers of the world alienate us from one another.”

The leader of the Kansas City-St. Joseph Diocese, Bishop James Johnston Jr., has been criticized for a similar letter in which he urged people to vote for candidates who oppose abortion, which some saw as an endorsement of Republican candidates.

MetroSTL.com staff contributed to this report.

Just weeks before the Nov. 3 election, Pelosi said Trump needed to disclose more about his health after his COVID-19 diagnosis. She noted Trump’s “strange tweet” halting talks on a new coronavirus aid package — he subsequently tried to reverse course — and said Americans needed to know when, exactly, he first contracted COVID-19 as others in the White House became infected. She planned to roll out on Friday the legislation that would launch the commission for review.

“The public needs to know the health condition of the president,” Pelosi said, invoking the 25th Amendment, which allows a president’s Cabinet or Congress to intervene when a president is unable to conduct the duties of the office.

Trump responded swiftly via Twitter.

“Crazy Nancy is the one who should be under observation. They don’t call her Crazy for nothing!” the president said.

The president’s opponents have discussed invoking the 25th Amendment for some time, but are raising it now, so close to Election Day, as the campaigns are fast turning into a referendum on Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic. More than 210,000 Americans have died and millions more have been infected by the virus that shows no signs of abating heading into what public health experts warn will be a difficult flu season and winter.

Trump has said he “feels great” after being hospitalized and is back at work in the White House. But his doctors have given mixed signals about his diagnosis and treatment. Trump plans to resume campaigning soon.

Congress is not in legislative session, and so any serious consideration of the measure, let alone votes in the House or Senate, is unlikely. But the bill serves as a political tool to stoke questions about Trump’s health during the coronavirus pandemic as his own White House is hit by an outbreak infecting top aides, staff and visitors, including senators.

In a stunning admission, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said Thursday that he had stopped going to the White House two months ago because he disagreed with its coronavirus protocols. His last visit was Aug. 6.

“My impression was their approach to how to handle this was different from mine and what I insisted we do in the Senate, which is to wear a mask and practice social distancing,” McConnell said at a campaign stop in northern Kentucky for his own reelection.

Pelosi, D-Calif., along with Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., a constitutional law professor, plan to roll out the legislation that would establish a commission as outlined under the 25th Amendment. That rule was passed by Congress and ratified in 1967 as way to ensure a continuity of power in the aftermath of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination in 1963.

The Amendment says the vice president and a majority of principal officers of the executive departments “or of such other body as Congress” may by law provide a declaration to Congress that the president “is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.” At that point, the vice president would immediately assume the powers of acting president.

Trump abruptly halted talks this week on the new COVID aid package, sending the economy reeling, his GOP allies scrambling and leaving millions of Americans without additional support. Then he immediately reversed course and tried to kickstart talks.

It all came in a head-spinning series of tweets and comments days after he returned to the White House after his hospitalization with COVID-19.

First, Trump told the Republican leaders in Congress on Tuesday to quit negotiating on an aid package. By Wednesday he was trying to bring everyone back to the table for his priority items — including $1,200 stimulus checks for almost all adult Americans.

Pelosi said Thursday that Democrats were “still at the table,” and her office resumed conversations with top negotiator Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.

She said she told Mnuchin she was willing to consider a measure to prop up the airline industry, which is facing widespread layoffs. But that aid, she said, must go alongside broader legislation that includes the kind of coronavirus testing, tracing and health practices that Democrats say are needed as part of a national strategy to “crush the virus.”

Normally, the high stakes and splintered politics ahead of an election could provide grounds for a robust package. But with other Republicans refusing to spend more money, it appears no relief will be coming with Americans already beginning early voting.

Democrats have made it clear they will not do a piecemeal approach until the Trump administration signs off on a broader, comprehensive plan they are proposing for virus testing, tracing and other actions to stop its spread. They have scaled back a $3 trillion measure to a $2.2 trillion proposal. The White House presented a $1.6 trillion counter offer. Talks were ongoing when Trump shut them down.

“There’s no question that the proximity to the election has made this much more challenging,” McConnell said.