President Donald Trump expected to be released Monday from the military hospital where he is being treated for Covid-19, a day after he briefly ventured out while contagious to greet supporters cheering him on in a caravan in a move he made. disregarding precautions designed to contain the deadly virus. which has killed more than 209,000 Americans.
White House officials said Trump was eager to be released after three nights at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, where doctors revealed Sunday that his blood oxygen level suddenly dropped twice in recent days and they gave him a steroid that is generally only recommended for patients. sick. Still, doctors said Trump’s health is improving and volunteered for his discharge Monday to continue the rest of his treatment at the White House.
“This is an important day as the president continues to improve and is ready to return to normal work hours,” White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows told Fox News on Monday. He said the determination on whether Trump would leave the hospital will not be made until later in the day after the president is evaluated by his medical team, but that Trump was “optimistic” that he could be discharged on Monday.
Less than a month before Election Day, Trump was eager to project strength despite his illness. The still infectious president surprised supporters who had gathered outside the hospital, driving in a black van with the windows closed. Secret Service agents inside the vehicle could be seen wearing masks and other protective gear.
The move capped a weekend of contradictions that fueled confusion over Trump’s health, which has endangered the leadership of the US government and upset the final stages of the presidential campaign. While Trump’s doctor offered an optimistic prognosis about his condition, his reports lacked basic information, including findings from lung scans, or were quickly confused by more serious assessments of the president’s health by other officials.
In a short video released by the White House on Sunday, Trump insisted he understood the gravity of the moment. But his actions moments later, leaving the hospital and sitting inside the van with others, suggested otherwise.
“This is crazy,” says Dr. James P. Phillips, Walter Reed’s GP who is a critic of Trump and his handling of the pandemic. “Every person in the vehicle during that completely unnecessary presidential ‘step’ now has to be quarantined for 14 days. They can get sick. They may die “.
White House spokesman Judd Deere said Trump’s trip out of the hospital “was cleared by the medical team as insurance.” He added that precautions, including the use of personal protective equipment, were taken to protect Trump, as well as White House officials and Secret Service agents.
Joe Biden’s campaign, meanwhile, said the Democratic presidential candidate tested negative for coronavirus again on Sunday. The results come five days after Biden spent more than 90 minutes on stage in the debate with Trump. Biden, who has taken a much more cautious approach to in-person events, had two negative tests on Friday.
The White House has declined to say when Trump last tested negative and whether he was tested before the debate, but the Cleveland Clinic, which co-sponsored the event, said Trump’s team certified on the day of the debate that he and everyone who accompanied him in the discussion room had received a negative COVID-19 test.
For his part, Trump still faces questions about his health.
His doctors avoided questions Sunday about exactly when the oxygen in Trump’s blood dropped, an episode they did not mention in multiple statements the day before, or whether lung scans showed any damage.
It was the second consecutive day of obfuscation of a White House already suffering a credibility crisis. And it raised further questions about whether the doctors treating the president were sharing accurate and timely information with the American public about the severity of his condition.
Pressed by conflicting information that he and the White House released on Saturday, the Commander of the Navy. Dr. Sean Conley acknowledged that he had tried to present a more cheerful description of the president’s condition.
“I was trying to reflect the optimistic attitude that the team, the president, has had in their course of illness,” Conley said. She said that “I did not want to give any information that could divert the course of the disease in another direction. And in doing so, you know, it turned out that we were trying to hide something, which wasn’t necessarily true. The fact is that she is doing very well. “
Medical experts said Conley’s disclosures were difficult to square with her positive evaluation and talk of discharge.
“There’s a bit of a disconnect,” said Dr. Steven Shapiro, chief medical and scientific officer at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.
It was not clear how long Trump’s recovery in the White House would continue once he is terminated.
According to CDC guidelines, “In general, the transportation and movement of a patient with suspected or confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection out of their room should be limited to medically essential purposes.”
Even before the departure of Trump’s caravan on Sunday, some Secret Service agents have raised concerns about the nonchalant attitude toward masks and social distancing within the White House, but there isn’t much they can do, according to agents and officials who spoke to The Associated Press. . This close to the election, thousands of officers are engaged in protective duties so that they can be quickly replaced should someone test positive.
Revelations about Trump’s oxygen levels and steroid treatment suggested that the president is enduring more than a mild case of Covid-19.
Blood oxygen saturation is a key health marker for Covid-19 patients. A normal reading is between 95 and 100. Conley said the president had a “high fever” and a blood oxygen level below 94% on Friday and during “another episode” on Saturday.
He was evasive about the timing of Trump’s oxygen drops. But it revealed that Trump received a dose of the steroid dexamethasone in response. At the time of the briefing, Trump’s blood oxygen level was 98%, within normal rage, Trump’s medical team said.
Signs of pneumonia or other lung damage could be detected on scans before the patient feels short of breath, but the president’s doctors declined to say what those scans have revealed.
“There are some expected findings, but nothing of great clinical concern,” Conley said. She declined to outline those “expected findings.”
When asked about Conley’s lack of transparency, White House aide Alyssa Farah suggested that the doctors were talking to both the president and the American public: “When you’re treating a patient, you want to project trust, you want to cheer him up, and that was the intention. “
In all, nearly 7.4 million people have been infected in the United States, and few have access to the kind of 24-hour experimental care and treatments like Trump.
Trump’s treatment with the steroid dexamethasone is in addition to the single dose he received Friday of an experimental drug from Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc. that supplies antibodies to help the immune system fight the virus. Trump also began a five-day course of remdesivir, a Gilead Sciences drug currently used for patients with moderate and severe illnesses, on Friday. Medications work in different ways: Antibodies help the immune system remove the virus from the body, and remdesivir slows the virus’ ability to multiply.
Garibaldi, a specialist in pulmonary intensive care, said the president did not show any side effects from the drugs “that we can say.”
The National Institutes of Health’s Covid-19 treatment guidelines recommend not using dexamethasone in patients who do not require oxygen. It has only been shown to help in more serious cases. One of the concerns with past use is that steroids tamp down certain immune cells, hampering the body’s ability to fight infection.
Trump is 74 years old and clinically obese, putting him at higher risk for serious complications. First lady Melania Trump has remained in the White House as she recovers from her own attack with the virus.
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