Covid 19 coronavirus: confusion over Trump’s condition as the White House contradicts his doctors

There is growing confusion about the condition of the president of the United States, Donald Trump, today, as his doctors and the White House provide conflicting information about the world’s highest-profile coronavirus patient.

Doctors treating Trump, led by White House physician Dr. Sean Conley, held a press conference in front of Walter Reed Medical Center around noon local time. They painted an optimistic picture of the president’s health.

“The president is doing very well,” Conley said.

“At this time, the team and I are very happy with the progress the president has made. [On] On Thursday he had a mild cough and some nasal congestion and fatigue, all of which are now resolving and improving at the moment.

“It is important to note that the president has been fever-free for more than 24 hours. We remain cautiously optimistic, but he is doing very well.

“Another note, it should be clear that you have a lot of work to do and you are doing it.”

Dooley, a pulmonary intensive care physician, emphasized that Trump was in “exceptionally good humor.”

“The president is off oxygen this morning; he’s not having trouble breathing or walking through the White House medical unit,” Dooley said.

“In fact, when we were completing our rounds this morning, the quote he left us was, ‘I feel like I could get out of here today.’ And that was a very encouraging comment from the president. “

Sounds pretty straightforward, right?

But when Conley answered questions from reporters, things got a bit cautious. And immediately after the briefing, White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows gave the press a much less rosy picture of Trump’s health.

The doctor repeatedly avoids questions

Let’s start with Conley’s responses during the briefing, and then we’ll go over Meadows’ comments in more detail.

The first moment to raise his eyebrows came when journalists tried to determine whether Trump had received supplemental oxygen.

“You are not receiving, have you not received supplemental oxygen?” asked a journalist.

“He’s not on oxygen at the moment. That’s correct,” Conley replied.

“Have you not received any?” the reporter pressed.

“He didn’t need anything, uh, this morning, today at all. That’s right,” Conley said.

“At the moment, all the indicators are that it will continue without oxygen in the future.”

There was an interlude from that particular interrogation when the press conference turned to other topics, but a couple of minutes later the reporters tried again.

“Can we please [clear up] one thing. Have you ever taken supplemental oxygen? One of them asked.

“He’s not on oxygen right now,” Conley told them.

“I understand, I know you keep saying ‘right now’, but should we read the fact that he had done it earlier?” said the reporter.

“Yesterday and today I was not on oxygen,” Conley said.

“So you haven’t taken it during your Covid treatment?”

“He’s – he’s not on oxygen right now.”

It is not the clearest answer.

Another reporter asked Conley how high the president’s fever had been.

“You said you don’t have a fever now. What was your fever when you did, sir?” they asked.

“I prefer not to give specific numbers,” said the White House doctor.

“But he had a fever from Thursday to Friday, and since Friday morning he hasn’t had any.”

When asked if Trump had ever experienced shortness of breath, as a source told CNN White House correspondent Jim Acosta yesterday, Conley was emphatic.

“No. No, he hasn’t. He never has. He had a bit of a cough, he had a fever. More than anything, he’s felt exhausted,” he said.

He declined to say when the president had last tested negative for the virus (the White House says it tests frequently).

And while Conley acknowledged that the medical team was doing ultrasound and lab work daily to detect lung damage, he declined to “go into detail” about the results.

There was also some confusion about the timing of Trump’s diagnosis and treatment.

Conley said the president had “72 hours left to diagnose,” which would mean he tested positive for the virus on Wednesday, US time. That test actually happened Thursday night.

And Dr. Brian Garibaldi, a Johns Hopkins pulmonologist, told reporters that Trump had received an experimental coronavirus treatment, a cocktail of polyclonal antibodies, “about 48 hours ago.”

That would have been in the middle of the day on Thursday, US time, hours before Trump’s diagnosis.

Conley issued a clarification after the briefing, saying that he and Garibaldi had been wrong.

“This morning, while summarizing the president’s health, I incorrectly used the term ’72 hours ‘instead of’ day three ‘and ’48 hours’ instead of ‘day two’ with regard to his diagnosis and administration of the therapy of polyclonal antibodies “. Conley wrote in a statement released to the media.

“The president was first diagnosed with Covid-19 on the night of Thursday, October 1 and received Regeneron’s antibody cocktail on Friday, October 2.”

White House contradicts Trump doctors

Now we get to the really puzzling part.

In the immediate aftermath of the medics briefing, Meadows reached out to the White House press group and gave a much more sober assessment of his boss’s condition in recent days.

“The president’s vital signs over the past 24 hours were very worrying and the next 48 hours will be critical in terms of his care. We are not yet on a clear path to a full recovery,” he said.

Meadows initially provided this quote on condition of anonymity, and pool reporters described him as “a person familiar with the president’s health.”

This caused no small frustration among political journalists, several of whom demanded that the anonymous source be identified.

Soon after, the Meadows cover disappeared when video footage emerged of him approaching the press group and asking to speak unofficially.

Meadows then gave The Associated Press another quote, this time on the record.

“We are not yet on a clear path to a full recovery,” he said.

Trump got oxygen yesterday

Believe it or not, we’re not done yet.

In the wake of Conley’s briefing, during which he dodged all those questions about Trump getting supplemental oxygen, several American media outlets, including The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The Associated Press, and ABC News, confirmed that the president did indeed received oxygen yesterday.

They also directly contradicted Conley’s insistence that Trump “never” had trouble breathing.

“Two people close to the White House said in separate interviews that the president had trouble breathing on Friday and that his oxygen level dropped, prompting his doctors to give him supplemental oxygen while he was in the White House and transferred him to Walter. Reed, where it could be monitored with better equipment and treated more quickly in case of problems, “Maggie Haberman reported for The New York Times.

Conley didn’t see fit to mention any of this when he spoke to the media.

In addition to his reporting on Twitter, Haberman said the White House doctor “had now compromised his own ability to be believed by the public.”

“It is partly because you are adhering to the wishes of a patient who does not want yesterday’s information released, according to people briefed on what has happened so far,” he said.

Conflicting messages about Trump’s condition have puzzled Americans.

“I’m surprised that the White House pulled out the president’s doctor and then issued a contradictory statement,” Scott Jennings, a conservative political commentator who worked for George W. Bush, told Politico.

“You can’t do that. This just invites questions about what’s going on there.

“You cannot have inconsistent reports on the president’s health.”