It’s Saturday evening, and it’s unclear whether the president of the United States is at serious risk of dying. I could offer my best guess as to his condition, but it’s probably a pointless exercise because even high-ranking people in the White House have no idea.
Several White House aides also said they also did not have confidence in what they were being told by other officials.
“I can tell you what I am hearing, but I honestly have no idea if it’s right,” said one senior administration official close to the president. “A lot of people aren’t even telling other people in the building the truth.”
In most circumstances, the obvious lying and obfuscation surrounding the president’s health would be a sure sign that they’re trying to hide bad news, but this crew of thugs lies even when it’s in their best interests to tell the truth. Also, they’re lying in part to cover over their irresponsible behavior which has resulted in at least two dozen needless infections that we already know about, including at least eleven people who set-up and planned the presidential debate in Cleveland on Tuesday.
It appears likely that Trump knew he had COVID-19 earlier than he let on, making his subsequent choice to put people at risk a deliberate and potentially criminal act. Therefore, there are both legal and political reasons to obscure the truth about the actual timeline of events.
This is consistent with the seemingly sudden and severe onset of symptoms which typically do not result in immediate hospitalization. We’re not getting a straight story from anyone, but it now seems likely that Trump needed supplemental oxygen prior to going to Walter Reed medical center, and also that he had heart palpitations and a high fever.
He was able to sit, in suit and tie, to deliver a message to the nation from the presidential suite at the hospital on Saturday night. He looked pale, his voice was raspy, and at one point it appeared he was suppressing an urge to vomit, but he otherwise seemed lucid and as a rather subdued version of his normal self. He obviously isn’t intubated at the moment, so that’s a positive from the perspective of his prospects for recovery.
He’s clearly very sick, and the decision to treat him with monoclonal antibodies (REGN-COV2), an experimental treatment that has been administered on a “compassionate” basis to “fewer than 10 other people,” according to drug company spokesperson Alexandra Bowie, indicates his doctors were at one point facing a desperate situation. That impression is bolstered by the decision to treat him with remdesivir,
A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine found that patients receiving remdesivir recovered in 11 days, compared with 15 days for those who received a placebo. However, that study found the medication to be most effective for hospitalized patients with severe disease requiring supplemental oxygen.
The drug is administered intravenously over the course of five days. There is no evidence that it reduces the mortality rate, but it does seem to help those who recover to recover faster. The main point, however, is that it’s is normally used only on people who are already in desperate straits.
Obviously, at Trump’s age and body mass, he’s at high-risk of succumbing to COVID-19. Some experts put his odds of death as high as 30 percent, although he presumably has the best available treatment.
One thing I know is that you can’t spin this disease. If he dies, he dies, and if he recovers, he recovers. We will get our answer on that, one way or that other.
Probabilistically the most likely scenario is one in which he recovers but somewhat slowly, and has lingering effects that prevent strenuous campaigning. Meanwhile Biden is continuingas normal. The contrast is unmistakable, and I think the campaign is over.
Be careful. My grandmother would say kein ayin hara. Don’t tempt the evil eye. It ain’t over ’til it’s over.
Thanks, another informative and thoughtful post. I just want to lay down a political marker in the hope that it in some small way helps avoid (or at least, reduce) a generalized freakout on the left if Trump’s polling numbers improve over the next couple of weeks.
Because I think there’s a pretty good chance they do, for a couple of reasons:
1) Trump may well benefit from the general goodwill and sympathy of the American people when bad things happen (as he did in the immediate wake of the arrival of the pandemic in March); and,
2) Trump will almost certainly benefit from not being in the public eye. His worst campaign month four years ago was the one bracketed by the three presidential debates. Clinton won all three convincingly, in part because she was good and in part because Trump was himself and the voters got to see him (relatively) unfiltered by the media.
I hope it doesn’t happen, but if it does, don’t be surprised and don’t be distracted. Just keep focusing on what you can do to get out the vote.
I think 2 is more important than 1. The thing is that sympathy doesn’t have to translate into votes. So although people might disapprove less, they still vote for Biden. The other issue is that this is a disaster of Trump’s own making. So for every sympathy vote there’s a vote against his cavalier nonchalant and destructive leadership. End result: my guess is the polls do not move much, if at all, just like they have not really budged all year. Nate Cohn said they were in the field in Arizona on Friday and they observed there was a small movement away from Trump compared to Thursday. But I agree with you, we need to ignore , keep focused at GOTV regardless.
Edit: and the first national poll comes in and suggests no real movement: https://mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKBN26P0DT?__twitter_impression=true
I’d definitely advocate against a freakout at this point. As to the points you raise, I am already pretty skeptical about point #1. Over 70 percent of the public seems to attribute Trump’s plight to his own recklessness. That’s hardly a recipe for a bump in the polling numbers or approval ratings.
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-virus-precautions-poll/story?id=73411221
I do see some merit to point #2. An extended period where Trump has to keep his yap shut would at least not hurt his standing any further. That seems plausible. If I could find an excuse to avoid further debates, that could minimize damage. Saying that, as strikingly steady as this White House race has been, I am wondering if any movement we do see is anything beyond statistical noise. In the meantime, I agree that the focus now needs to be on GOTV. Souls to the polls, folks. That’s what will put this in the bag. Vote early if you can.
I don’t think he looks particularly well in that interview you have above, sort of fatigued and tired. But then not so much dying.
the interview yesterday with the platoon of doctors offered nothing other than a series of half truths. One would think we could hear the truth but this bunch we have now has made a science of lying and hiding the truth. Enough already.
I read there was a big surge of men over 50 years old moving to Biden in droves.
I’m not surprised by this movement. I know quite a few older men who are taking this virus seriously and they voted Republican in 2016. They don’t like being inconvenienced by constantly putting on a mask, but they believe it’s an important line of defense. They also know men have a better chance of dying from this virus. Seeing a president displaying such reckless behavior, making a mockery of wearing masks, and then contracting the disease is too much. Afterall, these guys have been good soldiers about wearing their masks, while the president places himself in the exceptional category, just as he did during Vietnam.
A couple observations: There are two methods of delivering supplemental oxygen: with a canual (the small tube that hooks into your nose), or with a face-mask that covers both your nose and mouth guaranteeing than any breath you take will include the supplemental oxygen. When I was training to be an EMT years ago, my instructor set out an easy rule: the cannula is for “little sick,” and the face mask is for “big sick.”
If Trump was “big sick,” it is unlikely he would have done as well as did in the speech last night (when he did not have any supplemental oxygen). If he only needs oxygen through a cannula, he just is not that sick. (If someone really needs supplemental oxygen through a face mask, if you take the mask away and the person then does a lot of talking, they quickly experience shortness of breath. I saw none of that in Trump’s video.)
Also, I disagree that giving him antibodies, remdesivir, and top-shelf steroids means he is very sick. I think it is just as likely that all of those drugs were given to him in the hope that something will stop the disease from progressing from mild to more serious.
One other thought: wouldn’t our health care system be a whole lot better if politicians, by law, could only receive the level of health care that was available to an average person in this country? If I had walked in to my local E.R. with a positive Covid test and a slight fever, they would have sent me home, and told me to come back if my symptoms worsened.
I think too he is asking for all those treatments to be thrown at him,and expecting one to be a magic bullet
He wantS out and back to campaigning and having no one telling him what to do/trying to control him
I think he is sick but moderately so. He wouldn’t be getting the steroids otherwise because they can actually harm patients if used when they are only having mild symptoms. But the steroids can also provide a false sense of normalcy to the patients even when underlying damage continues to build according to the accounts I’ve read. Of course maybe he bullied them into giving him it, but then the doctors are damaging his chances of beating the virus by agreeing to it. Which would be part for the course in this administration.
Steroids only dampen the immune system when taken for a period of time – short bursts have little to no effect.
Also, if he was really sick, he would have no energy to walk out to a car and drive around waving at his admirers.
I wonder why his Russian friend (plus the North Korean, Brazilian, and Turkish friends to name just a few) have not sent over their top docs to heal our own leader. I would say such assistance has been justly earned by the many good deeds performed by our leader, on behalf of those other leaders!
At the very least, surely this would be the time to reactivate the communications backchannel(s) that once hummed with, well, communications.
I am dumbfounded to the point of disillusion, that Ms. Guilfoyle has not yet gone to his bedside to deliver a rousing speech, so that our leader would arise as were he Lazarus!