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US President Donald Trump has continued to improve after his Covid-19 diagnosis and could be discharged from a hospital on Monday, his doctors say.
Dr. Sean Conley said Trump’s oxygen level dropped for the second time Saturday and he started on a steroid called dexamethasone.
But it was not clear if the president received additional oxygen.
Doctors also sought to clear up earlier confusion caused by conflicting statements about Trump’s condition.
The president’s Covid-19 diagnosis, which he made public in a tweet early Friday, has changed his election campaign. Trump faces Democratic challenger Joe Biden on November 3.
In a four-minute video posted to Twitter on Saturday night, the president, dressed in a suit jacket and shirt without a tie, said he was feeling “much better now” and that the next few days would be the “real test.”
Several people close to the president tested positive, including first lady Melania Trump. Many of them attended a well-attended White House event last weekend regarding Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination as Supreme Court Justice. It is being examined as a possible “overcast event”.
What else did the doctors say?
At a news conference at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center near Washington DC, Dr. Conley said Trump’s oxygen level had dropped twice since his positive test.
He said the first episode happened Friday morning at the White House and the president received supplemental oxygen “for about an hour.” He was flown to Walter Reed at night.
The news had already been widely reported in the US media, and Dr. Conley’s confirmation came after he refused to answer several questions from journalists on this issue on Saturday.
The second episode occurred on Saturday, but he did not specify when. When questioned, he did not say whether the president had received oxygen, but added that, if it did, “it was very limited.”
After this, Dr. Conley said, the team decided to give Trump dexamethasone, which studies show improves survival for hospitalized patients with severe Covid-19.
Steroids calm inflammation and the immune system and are already used in conditions such as arthritis and asthma, as well as some serious infections. The drugs are not believed to be helpful in the early stages of a coronavirus infection.
“Given the schedule where [Mr Trump] is in the course of the disease, we are trying to maximize all that we can do for him … We decided that, in this case, the potential benefits early in the course probably outweighed any risks at this point, “said Dr. Conley .
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Dr. Conley also addressed a conflicting account of the president’s health that he gave shortly after his briefing on Saturday by the White House chief of staff. Mark Meadows said Trump’s vitals for the previous 24 hours had been “very worrying” and that the next 48 hours would be critical.
“I think his statement was misinterpreted,” said the doctor.
However, he acknowledged giving an overly optimistic description of Trump’s condition a day earlier: “I didn’t want to give any information that could direct 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 was not necessarily true. “
Who else around the president has tested positive?
In addition to the president and first lady, at least six other people who attended the Rose Garden event for Amy Coney Barrett are now confirmed to have the virus.
Other people who have tested positive around Trump include his close aide Hope Hicks, who is believed to be the first to show symptoms, campaign manager Bill Stepien and former White House adviser Kellyanne Conway.
Nicholas Luna, the last person to test positive, is a personal assistant or “body man” to the president. He is in constant contact with Trump, handling his papers.
