homersapien 11,393 Posted October 2, 2020 Share Posted October 2, 2020 His odds are pretty good: "......Still, the odds appear to be in Trump's favor. Tom Frieden, who led the CDC under former President Barack Obama, laid out the statistical risk in a Friday morning tweet, writing, “A 74-year-old has approximately 3% chance of death, 10-15% chance of severe illness. Higher in males, obesity.”.......... .......But there’s no way to know how long Trump will be sick, or how vigorously he would be able to campaign in final days or weeks before the election. Covid-19 is notorious for its ability to attack multiple parts of the body, which can make the disease look very different from one patient to the next. It sometimes causes long-term health effects that can take months to recover from, and in some cases, can leave lasting damage to vital organs......... Could there be long-term effects? There’s a growing population of patients who haven’t fully recovered from the coronavirus months after first experiencing symptoms. Many of these “long haulers” had mild or moderate symptoms that sometimes didn’t require hospitalization. Common symptoms that linger over time include fatigue, a cough, shortness of breath, headaches, joint pain and in some cases, damage to the heart, lungs or brain. The difficulty of predicting outcomes has led scientists to study patients who had related viruses like SARS. The Mayo Clinic notes many who recovered went on to develop chronic fatigue syndrome, a disorder that worsens with physical or mental activity but doesn’t improve with rest. https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/02/what-we-know-and-dont-about-trumps-covid-case-425247 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
homersapien 11,393 Posted October 2, 2020 Share Posted October 2, 2020 The Probable Outcomes of Trump’s Diagnosis Here’s what is currently known about Trump’s health, and what it means for everyone else. James Hamblin 12:31 PM Donald Trump is 74, and he is male. Little else is known about his physical condition. Throughout his presidency, he has disclosed almost nothing in the way of medical records. He stands accused, by one of his former doctors, of dictating his medical assessment as a candidate in 2016. Even Trump’s body-mass index—a basic, objective measure of a person’s body weight divided by their height—is disputed. His reported height increased by an inch in his 2018 physical exam, which left him one pound shy of obese for his height. This is the context in which, in the predawn hours this morning, the world received news that the president had tested positive for the coronavirus. Trump disclosed his diagnosis in a tweet, and his doctor, Sean Conley, said in a statement that Trump and his wife, Melania, have the virus but are doing well and are at home in the White House. The president’s prognosis includes the full spectrum of possible outcomes. Many people infected by the coronavirus have no symptoms at all. Today, the White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, told reporters that Trump has been showing “mild” symptoms, akin to those of a common cold. If Trump is indeed symptomatic, that suggests he has been infected for at least two days, possibly many more. He could clear the virus and test negative in short order, and return to the campaign trail within days. He could also have a prolonged hospitalization involving weeks of unconsciousness on a ventilator, during which time Vice President Mike Pence would take charge. The president could die. Read: White House, Petri dish The president’s doctors have assured the nation during his time in office that he is in good health and does not have chronic medical conditions. But we know that Trump’s lifestyle does not portend an optimized immune system. His sleep schedule is erratic, he does not exercise, and he subsists on fast food and declines vegetables. He is prone to angry outbursts. These lifestyle factors, taken together, are suggestive of impaired resiliency, and could leave him more susceptible to being laid low by the virus. But a key variable in Trump’s case is that, because he is president, he will have the best possible medical monitoring and care. Should he need it, Trump will have care at the world’s best hospitals from doctors such as Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious-disease expert, whose advice Trump has spurned and rejected. Trump will have health care of the sort he has dangled as a campaign promise to all Americans since 2016, but never delivered. Trump is also white. This means he is statistically less likely to experience severe disease, or to die of COVID-19, compared with nonwhite Americans. Even as the pandemic has killed more than 1 million people, Trump has continued to downplay and deny the severity of the disease, and mostly declined to wear a mask. If he does experience a mild case, his perception may skew even further away from the realities of the crisis. Read: Fauci to meddling HHS official: ‘Take a hike’ Still, no one can be guaranteed an easy course of disease. COVID-19 can have lasting effects, and being in and out of the ICU can be traumatic. If Trump has an intense case, the experience may reorient him to take the virus more seriously. Severe cases of COVID-19 have a way of reorienting people’s capacity to fear it. https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/10/donald-trumps-covid-19-clinical-probabilities/616584/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RunInRed 16,438 Posted October 2, 2020 Share Posted October 2, 2020 4 hours ago, homersapien said: Karma This is not karma. It's a consequence. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DAG 33,997 Posted October 2, 2020 Share Posted October 2, 2020 Unless you have seen someone die in front of your eyes with COVID, you really won’t understand. I don’t wish this on anyone. Prayers lifted for a speedy recovery. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TitanTiger 20,499 Posted October 2, 2020 Share Posted October 2, 2020 The President has been taken to Walter Reed hospital. He walked to Marine One himself but it does appear his symptoms have gotten a bit worse. Probably a smart move even if he's not feeling really bad. Why waste time with transport if things were to take a turn when he could literally be right there where the medical team is? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AUDub 11,158 Posted October 3, 2020 Share Posted October 3, 2020 Interesting thing to note about all of this, he could very well be done campaigning. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SaltyTiger 7,820 Posted October 3, 2020 Share Posted October 3, 2020 1 hour ago, AUDub said: Interesting thing to note about all of this, he could very well be done campaigning. The same could be said for most 74 year old's with with a nasty case of the flu. No doubt the man is energetic beyond normal. We will see. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brad_ATX 13,654 Posted October 3, 2020 Author Share Posted October 3, 2020 Here's where things get real interesting from a political perspective. Tillis will go into quarantine for at least 10 days now and he's on the Judiciary Committee. ACB's nomination is now on hold until that committee can meet and approve. If other Republican Senators get this, the delays keep happening. Quite frankly, they could easily run out of time prior to election day. Imagine the public blowback if the Senate doesn't confirm before the election, Republicans lose the Senate and WH, and then try to confirm her in a lame duck session. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
homersapien 11,393 Posted October 3, 2020 Share Posted October 3, 2020 Well, Trump was right about one thing. I am tired of "winning". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TitanTiger 20,499 Posted October 3, 2020 Share Posted October 3, 2020 Kellyanne Conway has tested positive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AURex 2,019 Posted October 3, 2020 Share Posted October 3, 2020 Quoting Trump and all other Republicans, when s**t happens, "thoughts and prayers" with the same amount of sympathy/empathy they offer when they say it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1716AU 730 Posted October 3, 2020 Share Posted October 3, 2020 6 hours ago, DAG said: Unless you have seen someone die in front of your eyes with COVID, you really won’t understand. I don’t wish this on anyone. Prayers lifted for a speedy recovery. I have. And I have several students who have suffered some terrible effects from it. If it were anyone but the fool who of a president was in charge, I would wish for a speedy recovery. I hope he gets a full dose on what he has made certain 7.36 MILLION Americans have suffered, and many without the fantastic healthcare that this SKOAH is enjoying at the cost of the American people. You reap what you sow. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aubiefifty 16,823 Posted October 3, 2020 Share Posted October 3, 2020 10 hours ago, TitanTiger said: The President has been taken to Walter Reed hospital. He walked to Marine One himself but it does appear his symptoms have gotten a bit worse. Probably a smart move even if he's not feeling really bad. Why waste time with transport if things were to take a turn when he could literally be right there where the medical team is? bethesda naval hospital used to be the presidents go to hospital. it and walter reed are both supposed to be great but the naval hospital was more cutting edge at one time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
I_M4_AU 7,874 Posted October 3, 2020 Share Posted October 3, 2020 12 hours ago, AURex said: Quoting Trump and all other Republicans, when s**t happens, "thoughts and prayers" with the same amount of sympathy/empathy they offer when they say it. Well, bless your heart. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
homersapien 11,393 Posted October 3, 2020 Share Posted October 3, 2020 The coronavirus is all reality, no show..... Opinion by Megan McArdle Columnist Oct. 2, 2020 No matter how seriously you take President Trump’s covid-19 — and I do, having been through this with my father — it was inevitable that the “plot twist!” jokes would start circulating on Twitter as soon as the news broke. Critiquing reality as if it were a scripted drama has been a running gag for years about almost every major news development. And thus, my friend Julian Sanchez of the Cato Institute reacted to news of the Trump diagnosis with: “Huh. It’s the obvious twist, but I would’ve saved it for the season finale.” To which columnist for the Week Damon Linker responded, “Too obvious. That’s what makes me nervous.” Truly, never have I been so nervous. Nor so willing to believe that we are all living in a simulation, providing live entertainment for some incomprehensibly advanced civilization. The past four years have proceeded eerily as if they were being scripted by an HBO showrunner, complete with an antihero protagonist, and a deus-ex-machina pandemic, and the obligatory Helicopter Flight over the darkening D.C. skyline, all seemingly designed to revive fan excitement after viewers became jaded by the vulgar antics of the first few seasons. Or maybe this — all of this — is just what you get when you elect a reality television star to the presidency. Two things are true about Donald Trump: He has a keen showman’s instinct for what makes good television drama, and he thinks of little else. Unfortunately, as we keep discovering under this president, while drama in controlled doses is an essential break from the humdrum, it’s no fun when it’s your whole life. Trump was elected, of course, precisely because he blurs those lines — hell, he erases them. At least one study has suggested that many voters originally liked him because of the role they’d seen him play on television. Certainly, the media covered him because of it, both because he was already famous and because at any given juncture, he reliably did whatever was most likely to amp up the drama and keep him at the center of our screens. If you talked to his fans, you heard that they liked his willingness to say the attention-getting things most politicians would shy away from. Whatever else he was, he was never boring. Even many of his enemies seemed (let’s be honest) to enjoy the fantasy of themselves as budding resistance fighters against a dictatorship that has not, as yet, materialized — though Trump has certainly savagely eroded essential civic norms, most lately about losers ceding elections. But even some who thought him brash-but-harmless also found it exhausting to have a president who never, even for a moment, did anything boringly, unremarkably sane. For 3½ years, you could not get away from him; if the public’s attention flagged, he immediately embarked upon new outrages, until he’d once again provoked people into responding. And then came covid-19, and the entertainer-in-chief taught us how to really hate being an extra in someone else’s spectacle. From the first, Trump never seemed to grasp that the coronavirus was going to be all reality, no show. Obsessed with optics, and a reelection bid he thought rested on a booming economy, Trump denied and mismanaged the pandemic, and made safety measures into a political statement rather than a bipartisan civic duty. Which helped America’s first wave of infections continue on slow simmer all summer, rather than burning out like Europe’s. The defiant disdain for distancing and masks that Trump has nurtured in his supporters, combined with our elevated background level of disease, certainly increased the risk that the president himself would eventually catch it. That he finally did, at what might well prove the most inconvenient possible time for his campaign, also seems like a plot point in a script, though maybe a little too obvious; you can imagine pausing to tell your spouse, “Things are never that neat in real life.” That doesn’t mean he deserved to catch covid-19. Fictional characters may “deserve” a virus or similar catastrophe to requite their hubris, but a real human being never does. Rather, it’s just one more way that Trump has shown us how little any of us actually wants to live in a television series. High drama makes a swell break from ordinary lives that can be, by turns, dull, frustrating or bleak. But an hour a week is enough. And Trump has never gotten the concept of “enough.” What Trump deserves for that failure is not viral payback, but exactly what he appeared to be getting before he caught covid-19: voted out of office. Until the president is well, I will be praying for him to return to good health as quickly as possible . . . in time to be canceled by a frazzled electorate who finally seem tired of staring at the man on the screen. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-coronavirus-is-all-reality-no-show-thats-why-trumps-diagnosis-is-so-nerve-wracking/2020/10/02/1feb184c-04e5-11eb-a2db-417cddf4816a_story.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AUFAN78 3,912 Posted October 3, 2020 Share Posted October 3, 2020 On 10/2/2020 at 9:59 AM, auburn41 said: Having a Biden moment huh? I think you mean Jeffrey! Daily occurrence. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brad_ATX 13,654 Posted October 3, 2020 Author Share Posted October 3, 2020 https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-virus-outbreak-donald-trump-elections-campaigns-08fcfd3778ca3bbabd011307cf23dc8d Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AURex 2,019 Posted October 4, 2020 Share Posted October 4, 2020 Here's another chance for all you Trumpists to give me more red thumbs down. https://youtu.be/FkODKl7jOrE Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TitanTiger 20,499 Posted October 4, 2020 Share Posted October 4, 2020 Trump posts video to Twitter, says he's feeling better. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/trump-physician-provide-details-about-president-s-covid-19-condition-n1241973 I'm glad to hear it. I stopped during the day today to pray for him again. Hopefully some good can come out of this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
channonc 466 Posted October 4, 2020 Share Posted October 4, 2020 On 10/3/2020 at 6:26 AM, aubiefifty said: bethesda naval hospital used to be the presidents go to hospital. it and walter reed are both supposed to be great but the naval hospital was more cutting edge at one time. They are now one and the same. Walter reed’s old facilities were closed send all personnel were moved to Bethesda Naval. The complex was then renamed Walter Reed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aubiefifty 16,823 Posted October 4, 2020 Share Posted October 4, 2020 1 hour ago, channonc said: They are now one and the same. Walter reed’s old facilities were closed send all personnel were moved to Bethesda Naval. The complex was then renamed Walter Reed. thanks channonc. i have not been up that way since 77. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
homersapien 11,393 Posted October 4, 2020 Share Posted October 4, 2020 On 10/2/2020 at 3:17 PM, RunInRed said: This is not karma. It's a consequence. An anti-science POTUS deliberately downplays the seriousness of a pandemic and openly scorns protective measures - all for the purpose of perceived political advantage - then becomes infected himself. Seems like a textbook case of karma to me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DKW 86 7,431 Posted October 5, 2020 Share Posted October 5, 2020 Rumor: Q-Anon has come crazy rumor out there that Trump really doesnt have the virus. he is hiding in WRAH while some huge event is carried out for him rumored to be on 10-17-20. I wont go into the details. Just a heads up from people i love that are worried about this. I am not worried in the least by this crap. https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/qanon-trump-coronavirus-conspiracy-theorists-1070131/ Believers in the QAnon conspiracy theory, a baseless belief that Trump has a plan to arrest leftist deep-state operatives, are particularly thrilled, with many believing that Trump’s diagnosis has been staged — and that the arrests of his deep state enemies will occur while he is in isolation. Others believe that because he is taking hydroxychloroquine, a drug he has heavily promoted despite the FDA’s cautions about its serious side effects, he will be perfectly fine. (Initial reports have indicated he is showing mild symptoms so far.) Former QAnon Followers Explain What Drew Them In — And Got Them Out Wellness Influencers Are Calling Out QAnon Conspiracy Theorists for Spreading Lies “They believe the real reason he is in quarantine is to isolate him away from the evil deep state plotters so the storm can commence, and no one can reach him once the s*** hits the fan, and when the mass arrests start he will be protected,” says Travis View, co-host of the QAnon Anonymous podcast, which explores the bizarre roots of the conspiracy theory. “So of course this plays into the ‘nothing as it seems’ component of conspiracist thinking.” A major piece of “evidence” believers have cited is Trump’s own tweet announcing he had tested positive for the virus: “Tonight, @FLOTUS and I tested positive for COVID-19. We will begin our quarantine and recovery process immediately. We will get through this TOGETHER!” Many QAnon believers interpreted “together” as “to get her,” “her” meaning Hillary Clinton, a classic example of the QAnon “decoding” of “breadcrumbs,” or so-called hints the President has dropped to alert them that the plan is in action. Others cited a September Q drop featuring a Mickey Mouse clock with the little hand on 10 and the big hand on 2, presented without context; this has led some to speculate that it was in reference to “10/2,” the date Trump tested positive for the virus. (Q himself, the anonymous 8kun poster or group of posters who is the figurehead for the movement, has been silent since the news broke.) And these theories seem to be gaining traction in the mainstream fairly rapidly: As of Friday morning, “QAnon” was one of the trending terms on Google, with more than 50,000 searches. View sees this response as a way for conspiracy theorists to make sense of a twist in world events that is contradictory to their worldview. “The three big rules for conspiracy theorists are: ‘Nothing happens by accident, nothing is as it seems, and everything is connected,'” he says. “The idea that an indifferent, cruel virus could have disastrous impacts on world events” by infecting the president a month before the election is “impossible for them to comprehend.” The apparent cognitive dissonance we’re seeing far-right extremists display following Trump’s diagnosis actually makes a lot of sense, says Kathleen Stansberry, assistant professor of strategic communications at Elon University. “There’s something called the backfire effect. It essentially says that when confronted with facts that contradict someone’s worldview, instead of causing them to question it, it causes them to double down whatever belief was challenged and makes them dig in harder,” she says. “And I think we’re seeing that a lot right now.” Top ArticlesSee Regardless of the ludicrousness of such “evidence,” the fact is that conspiracy theories about Trump and Covid-19 are already gaining significant traction on social platforms, and the companies appear to be doing very little about it. On Twitter, for instance, QAnon influencers with hundreds of thousands of followers are promoting the idea that Trump is lying about contracting the virus for strategic reasons (this is in spite of the fact that Twitter has recently promised to crack down on QAnon accounts). Theories placing the blame squarely on the left have also been finding an audience. DeAnna Lorraine, a former congressional candidate with more than 390,000 followers who has publicly embraced QAnon, tweeted that she believed shadowy forces intentionally inculcated Trump during the debate earlier this week: “I put NOTHING past the left. NOTHING,” she said. Although Twitter policy is to include a label on misinformation about Covid-19, the tweet has no such label and has more than 5,000 retweets and 16,000 likes as of Friday morning. The social platforms’ inability to rein in disinformation is complicated by the fact that QAnon believers specifically have been instructed by Q to go further under the radar to avoid deplatforming, largely by avoiding the slogans and hashtags they typically use. “Now that the networks have gone stealth, it’s become even harder to not only identify a QAnon account but take action against it,” says Friedberg. “As Q has become more stealth, a lot of their speculation and conspiratorial framing can seep into other conversations a lot easier.” As speculation and conspiracy theorizing about Trump’s condition runs rampant, extremist researchers and experts believe that no matter what the outcome of his diagnosis, it will only serve as fuel for the fire of conspiracy theorists’ beliefs. “A mild case [of Covid-19] strengthens the idea this is not such a big deal and that [Trump’s diagnosis] is being blown up to discredit the presidency,” says Stansberry. “If it is very serious, then people will start talking about how this was a coordinated bioattack.” The latter outcome is arguably the most concerning one. If Trump becomes very ill or even dies, says View, it would do nothing to detract from QAnon believers’ ideology. “This would be the most significant generator of conspiracy theories since the assassination of JFK, perhaps even greater. Some people would very sincerely believe it’s some kind of assassination or coup,” says View. “That may motivate them to take violent or dangerous actions.” Even without an ailing president, this has already happened, as was the case with the fatal shooting of a Mob boss by a QAnon supporter in Staten Island last year, or the recent trend of QAnon-supporting mothers kidnapping their children to “save” them from a child trafficking ring. “The whole crux of QAnon is that there’s an insidious group trying to take down the presidency,” says Stansberry. “This fits into that view pretty neatly.” Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aubiefifty 16,823 Posted October 5, 2020 Share Posted October 5, 2020 while i certainly do not wish death on anyone the fact trump has the virus is just another example of him being reckless with the truth. how many morons out there believed him when he raised hell about wearing masks and then came down with it? even the stupid "you will get sick if you wear a mask stuff". trump is a joke and a con artist and you trumpers keep on lying and taking up for him. you guys want that supreme justice and now it appears trump has endangered that. i believe trump is sicker than they are letting on and i believe maybe even trump might not realize how sick he is. go watch the barrett celebration at the white house and look at all the folks with no masks. keep watch and see how many get covid because the president does not like mask wearing. there are already several.he reckless. he is reckless with this country and he is reckless with covid which has caused thousands of lives. this is a sad time for our country. i just hope it does not get worse. remember folks now that the covid has hit the white house and government so hard i believe the pundits when they say it is now a national security issue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
homersapien 11,393 Posted October 5, 2020 Share Posted October 5, 2020 Prospect of Trump’s early hospital discharge mystifies doctors They say he is in a particularly vulnerable window for covid-19 patients and should be watched closely while taking an unusual combination of drugs The assertion by President Trump’s doctors that he could be discharged from the hospital as early as Monday astonished outside infectious-disease experts, who said he remains in a dangerous period of vulnerability when some covid-19 patients decline precipitously and require urgent intervention. During a midday briefing Sunday on the president’s medical condition and treatment, White House physician Sean Conley and his team twice referred to planning to release Trump as early as the next day “if he continues to look and feel as well as he does today.” The talk of the president’s release from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center came as Conley and two other physicians treating Trump gave an upbeat but incomplete characterization of his condition. Outside doctors said they were mystified by what they said was an inconsistent portrayal of the president’s illness as relatively mild despite the aggressive mix of treatments he is getting. The president’s medical team was at times cryptic: Asked whether CT scans showed any signs of pneumonia or lung damage, Conley replied, “Yeah, so we’re tracking all of that. There’s some expected findings, but nothing of any major clinical concern.” He declined to elaborate. At another point, Sean Dooley, a pulmonary critical care doctor, said the president’s “cardiac, liver and kidney function demonstrates continued normal findings, or improving findings.” He did not disclose which of those had been subpar. “My impression is they are telling us everything that is of good news and limiting everything that is not perfect,” said Rochelle Walensky, chief of infectious diseases at Massachusetts General Hospital. Robert Wachter, chairman of the University of California at San Francisco’s department of medicine, said any patient of his with Trump’s symptoms and treatment who wanted to be discharged from the hospital three days after their admission would need to sign out against doctors’ orders because it would be so ill-advised. “For someone sick enough to have required remdesivir and dexamethasone, I can’t think of a situation in which a patient would be okay to leave on day three, even with the White House’s medical capacity,” Wachter said. “Absolutely not,” William Schaffner, a professor of infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University’s medical school, said of the idea of sending Trump back to the White House on Monday. “I will bet dollars to doughnuts it’s the president and his political aides who are talking about discharge, not his doctors,” Schaffner added. Medical consensus has emerged that covid-19 patients are especially vulnerable for a period of a week to 10 days after their first symptoms. Some patients who seem relatively healthy suddenly deteriorate, either because of the virus itself or an excessive immune response that can cause damage to several organs, including the heart. A multitude of possible cardiac complications have also been associated with covid-19, the most prominent of which involves a hardening of the walls of the heart that makes it difficult to pump blood and can lead to heart failure. “People can be doing okay, but it can get a rocky very quickly,” said Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security and an infectious-disease specialist at the University of Pittsburgh. Underscoring the concerns is the fact that Trump may be the first patient — he is certainly among the first — to receive an unusual combination of three strong treatments, with a handful of supplements and an over-the-counter drug sprinkled in. “He’s gotten kitchen-sink therapy,” said Walensky, of Massachusetts General. She noted that when dexamethasone was tested in clinical trials earlier this year, none of the patients were also given the experimental antibody cocktail Trump is receiving. Several doctors expressed worry there is no data indicating how these treatments might react with each other, especially in an overweight 74-year-old man with a mild heart condition who is in the high risk group for severe coronavirus disease. The list of treatments the president is receiving includes a five-day regimen of the antiviral remdesivir; monoclonal antibodies, an experimental treatment still in clinical trials; and dexamethasone, a steroid found to help patients with advanced respiratory distress. Trump is also taking two unproven supplements (vitamin D and zinc) and an over-the-counter drug (famotidine, the active ingredient in heart burn medication Pepcid.) The president has personally touted the benefits of zinc — in combination with hydroxychloroquine — for the coronavirus, and his administration funded trials of famotidine despite allegations of conflicts of interest. “All of these are data-free zones. We just don’t know,” Walensky said. She noted the mix of treatments — especially the use of a steroid usually reserved for coronavirus patients whose immune systems are over-functioning — is inconsistent with the characterization by Trump’s physicians that he is getting better. Lewis Kaplan, a critical care doctor at the University of Pennsylvania and the Veteran’s Administration, said this type of untested combination therapy is typically only applied as a desperate measure — when a patient is seriously ill and probably in the intensive care unit. On the other hand, he said, giving this cocktail to a sitting head of state as a preventive measure as a way to reduce the risk of a more severe course could be construed as “reasonable.” “And we just don’t know which one reflects reality,” Kaplan said. The use of monoclonal antibodies is extremely limited since the treatment is still in late-stage trials so patients would not typically take it in combination with remdesivir. Remdesivir, the Gilead Sciences drug authorized for emergency use in May, is more widely available, but many hospitals reserve it only for the sickest patients. Joshua Barocas, an infectious-disease specialist at the Boston University School of Medicine, said the science makes sense although he does not know of a case in which a patient received both those treatments at the same time. “The monoclonal antibodies neutralize the virus and the remdesivir stops the viral replication,” he explained. Dexamethasone is recommended only in patients who are extremely ill, according to many guidelines, but a number of hospitals routinely give the drug to any patient who requires supplemental oxygen, if only for a few hours. A recent study found it tends to reduce deaths from the virus but nearly a quarter of infected patients getting it with supplemental oxygen — as Trump has — still died. Steroids in high doses and over long periods of time also can lead to serious changes in mental status that include delirium, hallucinations and confusion. Barocas said at the dose typically used for the coronavirus, this is unlikely to be an issue and White House physicians are probably monitoring the president closely. “It’s not outside the range of possibilities that he could have that adverse event,” Barocas said. Another drug the president is taking — famotidine — remains controversial. The Trump administration earlier this year granted a $21 million emergency contract to researchers to try famotidine on ill patients — despite a whistleblower complaint that it was rushed through by the Department of Health and Human Services without the necessary scientific oversight. According to an investigation by the Associated Press, internal emails show a top Food and Drug Administration official expressed concerns that the daily injections, which are experimental, pushed safety “to the limits.” “There’s no evidence at this point to suggest vitamin D or zinc do anything for or against covid. And I haven’t seen any good evidence about famotidine,” Barocas said. “I really don’t want these other medications to become the next hydroxychloroquine,” he added, referring to Trump’s touting of the antimalarial drug without evidence of its effectiveness. The drug was subsequently found to offer no benefits to covid-19 patients. Hydroxychloroquine is not on the list of medications his doctors said Trump is taking at Walter Reed. Another treatment missing from Trump’s regimen arsenal is a blood thinner given as a standard practice these days to any hospitalized patient with covid-19 to reduce the risk of clots. In the spring, many doctors were surprised to find microclots that appear in the lungs and heart appeared to be killing some patients. Doctors speculated the president may have declined the treatment after what happened to his younger brother, Robert, who died in August due to brain bleeds. He had been taking blood thinners. Experts acknowledged discharge from the hospital for a sitting president would be very different than for a normal person — and would not necessarily indicate the same level of stability in his illness. Hospitals, they noted, typically do not discharge patients who are on IV medications, and Trump is in the middle of a five-day course of remdesivir that is given intravenously. But a team of specialists could continue to monitor him at the White House and would probably have access to heart monitors, oxygen tanks, and even a “crash cart” — which contains materials to resuscitate a patient should he need that. The president would also have his regular fleet of helicopters and other transportation at his disposal to get him to the hospital quickly if needed. But Barocas said the decision whether to discharge the president should not just be about his condition — but also about the White House staff, including cooks, butlers, housekeepers and other personnel, who work in the buildings. When it comes to infectious diseases like covid-19, he said, “we want to make sure we have a place for someone that is not only safe for them — but safe for them to isolate so they won’t infect other people.” “My concern is,” he said. “What are the protections for the people who will have to care for this elderly man who probably won’t isolate and won’t wear a mask?” https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/10/04/trump-covid-19-discharge/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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