Covid-19 Live Updates: Trump Is Not Out of Danger, Official Says
The president, at the Walter Reed military hospital, is “improving,” Dr. Sean Conley said in an optimistic assessment that raised questions about when the virus was diagnosed. But his chief of staff, Mark Meadows, said Mr. Trump’s symptoms were “very concerning.”
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Leading independent doctors suggest there is reason to worry for Mr. Trump.
Here’s what you need to know:
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‘We’re still not on a clear path to a full recovery,’ the president’s chief of staff said.
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Trump’s Medical Team Provides an Update on His Condition
President Trump’s doctors said he was doing well, but they refused to provide critical details and left open the impression that he was known to be sick earlier than previously reported.
“Just 72 hours into the diagnosis now. The first week of Covid, and in particular Days 7-10, are the most critical in determining the likely course of this illness. At this time, the team and I are extremely happy with the progress the president has made. Thursday he had a mild cough and some nasal congestion and fatigue, all of which are now resolving and improving.” “We have monitored his cardiac function, his kidney function, his liver function, all of those are normal. And the president this morning is not on oxygen, not having difficulty breathing or walking around the White House medical unit upstairs. He’s in exceptionally good spirits. And in fact, as we were completing our multidisciplinary rounds this morning, the quote he left us with was, ‘I feel like I could walk out of here today.’ And that was a very encouraging comment from the president.” “About 48 hours ago, the president received a special antibody therapy directed against the coronavirus, and we’re working very closely with the companies to monitor him in terms of that outcome. Yesterday evening, he received his first dose of I.V. Remdesivir. And our plan is to continue a five-day treatment course for Remdesivir. And the big plan for today, since he’s in such great spirits and doing well, is to encourage him to eat, to drink, to stay hydrated, to be up out of bed, and to be working and doing the thing, things that he needs to do to get well.” “Will President Trump have to stay at Walter Reed to get the five-day Remdesivir treatment?” “We’ve discussed it, right now if he needs all five days that will likely be the course. But again, every day we’re reviewing with the team his needs for being here. And as soon as he gets to the point where it’s not a requirement, he may still need some care, but if we can provide that downtown at the house, then we will transition at that point.”
1:52Trump’s Medical Team Provides an Update on His Condition
President Trump’s doctors said he was doing well, but they refused to provide critical details and left open the impression that he was known to be sick earlier than previously reported.CreditCredit...Anna Moneymaker for The New York Times
President Trump’s vital signs were “very concerning” over the last day and he is not out of danger, the White House chief of staff said on Saturday, contradicting a rosier picture painted by the president’s doctors on television just minutes before.
While the doctors maintained that Mr. Trump was “doing very well” and in “exceptionally good spirits” after his first night in the hospital with the coronavirus, Mark Meadows, the chief of staff, provided a more sober assessment and warned that the next two days would be pivotal in determining the outcome of the illness.
“The president’s vitals over the last 24 hours were very concerning and the next 48 hours will be critical in terms of his care,” Mr. Meadows told reporters outside Walter Reed Medical Military Center, where the president was flown on Friday evening and will remain for at least a few days. “We’re still not on a clear path to a full recovery.”
Mr. Meadow’s remarks were attributed to a person familiar with the president’s health in a pool report sent to White House journalists in keeping with ground rules that he set for the interview. But a video posted online captured Mr. Meadows approaching the pool reporters outside Walter Reed following the doctors’ televised briefing and asking to speak off the record, making clear who the unnamed source was.
The mixed messages only exacerbated the confusion and uncertainties surrounding the president’s situation. During their briefing, the doctors refused to provide important details and gave timelines that conflicted with earlier White House accounts and left the impression that the president was sick and began treatment earlier than officially reported.
Two people close to the White House said in separate interviews with The New York Times that the president had trouble breathing on Friday and that his oxygen level dropped, prompting his doctors to give him supplemental oxygen while at the White House and transfer him to Walter Reed where he could be monitored with better equipment and treated more rapidly in case of trouble.
During the televised briefing, Dr. Sean P. Conley, the White House physician, said the president was not currently receiving supplemental oxygen on Saturday but repeatedly declined to say definitively whether he had ever been on oxygen. “None at this moment and yesterday with the team, while we were all here, he was not on oxygen,” he said, seeming to suggest that there was a period on Friday at the White House when he was.
Dr. Conley likewise appeared to indicate that the president was first diagnosed with the virus on Wednesday rather than Thursday night when Mr. Trump disclosed that he had tested positive on Twitter. While describing what he said was the president’s progress, he said Mr. Trump was “just 72 hours into the diagnosis now,” which would mean midday on Wednesday.
Asked about that, Dr. Conley did not clarify but said that on Thursday afternoon “we repeated testing and, given clinical indications, had a little bit more concern.” Late that night, he said “we got the PCR confirmation that he was” positive. Mr. Trump attended campaign events on both Wednesday night and Thursday without wearing a mask and gathering hundreds of supporters who likewise were not taking precautions against the virus.
Dr. Brian Garibaldi, another physician treating the president, also said that Mr. Trump had received an experimental antibody therapy “about 48 hours ago,” which would have been midday Thursday — before the confirmation test Dr. Conley said came back positive that evening and a full day before the White House disclosed the treatment on Friday.
The confusion came from a briefing where Dr. Conley and his team offered a relentlessly positive assessment of Mr. Trump’s condition. “This morning the president is doing very well,” Dr. Conley said. “At this time, the team and I are extremely happy with the progress the president has made.”
The doctors said Mr. Trump had been free of fever for 24 hours and had blood pressure and heart rates that were normal for him. Asked why he moved Mr. Trump to the hospital, Dr. Conley said, “Because he’s the president of the United States.”
Dr. Sean N. Dooley, another physician on the team, said Mr. Trump was feeling optimistic. “He’s in exceptionally good spirits,” Dr. Dooley said. He added that the president told his doctors, “I feel like I could walk out of here today.”
Mr. Trump amplified that buoyant tone in a Twitter message on Saturday afternoon. “Doctors, Nurses and ALL at the GREAT Walter Reed Medical Center, and others from likewise incredible institutions who have joined them, are AMAZING!!!” he wrote. “Tremendous progress has been made over the last 6 months in fighting this PLAGUE. With their help, I am feeling well!”
TRUMP’S CONDITION
Read more about how doctors refused to provide critical details and left open the impression that the president was known to be sick a day earlier than previously reported.
Tracing Trump’s Contacts Before He Tested Positive for Coronavirus
A visual guide to the president’s movements and contacts in the days before he announced his positive test for the coronavirus.
— Maggie Haberman and Peter Baker
Leading independent doctors suggest there is reason to worry for Mr. Trump.
While the White House physician, Dr. Sean P. Conley, said during a televised briefing on Saturday that President Trump was “doing very well,” a person close to the situation said on the condition of anonymity that the president’s vital signs were concerning and that he was not out of danger.
Here are views from other leading doctors. The doctors have not treated the president and were speaking based only on the reported information about his condition.
Dr. Jeremy Faust, an emergency medicine physician at Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston: “This is a nightmare. When we first learned about this disease, it was the patients who fit the president’s description who we were most worried about. This disease can affect everybody but the rapid progression in a patient who meets the president’s description is highly alarming and warrants considering the worst case scenario. It’s not unreasonable to worry that the president is fighting for his life.”
Dr. Carlos del Rio, distinguished professor of medicine at Emory University in Atlanta: “Transferring him to Walter Reed was the right thing. Because any of us who have seen patients with Covid, especially patients at his age, can say that one minute they seem fine and the next minute not. It’s not terribly surprising. This is the critical time. This is the first 48-72 hours. The fact that they’re giving him remdesevir and everything else, it’s the right thing to do. Because of his age, he is at high risk and, if I was his doctor, I would be concerned.”
Dr. Craig Spencer, an emergency medicine physician at Columbia University Medical Center in New York: On the public comment from Trump’s medical team, Dr. Spencer said, “All of that is reassuring, and so it’s hard to correlate that with what is being mentioned from the anonymous source.” Regarding the discrepancy between the formal report and the anonymous source, he said: “Maybe it’s true, maybe it’s not. The problem is that we should know, we should have a better idea of what the actual status is of the president. We need more of a scientific update, as opposed to a political one.”
— Apoorva Mandavilli
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Reality intrudes on a White House in denial.
President Trump leaving the White House for the Walter Reed military hospital on Friday.
President Trump leaving the White House for the Walter Reed military hospital on Friday.Credit...Anna Moneymaker for The New York Times
A White House long in denial confronted reality this week after President Trump and the first lady both tested positive for the virus, along with a cadre of close advisers, including Hope Hicks, a top White House aide, and Bill Stepien, the Trump campaign manager.
The outcome appeared shocking but also inevitable in a West Wing that assumed that rapid virus tests for everyone who entered each morning were substitutes for other safety measures, like social distancing and wearing masks.
But the outcome was also a byproduct, former aides said, of the recklessness and top-down culture of fear that Mr. Trump created at the White House and throughout his administration. If you wanted to make the boss happy, they said, you left the mask at home.
President Trump at times told staff wearing masks in meetings to “get that thing off,” an administration official said. Everyone knew that Mr. Trump viewed masks as a sign of weakness, officials said, and that his message was clear. “You were looked down upon when you would walk by with a mask,” said Olivia Troye, a top aide on the coronavirus task force who resigned in August and has endorsed former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.
In public, some of the president’s favorite targets were mask-wearing White House correspondents. “Would you take it off, I can hardly hear you,” Mr. Trump told Jeff Mason of Reuters in May, then mocked Mr. Mason for wanting “to be politically correct” when he refused.
— Annie Karni and Maggie Haberman
WHITE HOUSE CULTURE
If you wanted to make the boss happy, former aides said, you left the mask at home.
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2020/10/03/world/covid-trump