He has a contagious disease with no known cure. https://t.co/XS7K2C4WvQ
— southpaw (@nycsouthpaw) October 4, 2020
Trump’s doctors: Here’s a bunch of stuff suggesting he’s quite sick.
Also Trump’s doctors: It’s going great though. https://t.co/7oJkaO1JeD
— The Hoarse Whisperer (@TheRealHoarse) October 4, 2020
There’s a long history of White Houses lying about the president’s health — JFK, FDR, etc. The distinction here is the incompetence.
— Jonathan Swan (@jonathanvswan) October 4, 2020
Trump's doctor says he didn't admit yesterday that Trump was put on oxygen because he was trying to be publicly upbeat. "I didn't want to give any information that might steer the illness in another direction." pic.twitter.com/luMyDyacZH
— David Mack (@davidmackau) October 4, 2020
Giving the patient a fit of apoplectic rage because you said something he perceived made him be perceived as weak might influence the course of the illness.
— Michael O'Neal (@onealmp) October 4, 2020
Four pieces of information in that briefing: a) Trump's fever was "high" b) Trump's lung scans show "expected findings," unclear what that means but c) Trump is on a steroid the WHO recommends only for "severe and critical" COVID cases and d) Trump's oxygen lvls dropped again Sat
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) October 4, 2020
Very odd that Dr. Conley said Friday that the key period for covid patients was really Day 7-Day 10, and yet now they’re trying to send the message that Trump’s past the worst of it. Since we haven’t gotten to Day 7 yet, how would anyone know?
— James Surowiecki (@JamesSurowiecki) October 4, 2020
Dexamethasone can cause frank mania, or more severe depressive states. Added to the risk of COVID related neuropsychiatric symptoms/severe delirium the press ought to be asking the medical team how they are formally monitoring his mental status @maggieNYT @jonathanvswan
— Paul Summergrad (@paulsummergrad) October 4, 2020
Dr. Sean Conley asked re chest x-ray/CT:
"We are tracking all of that. There are some expected findings, but nothing of concern."
That's not an answer.
Does @realDonaldTrump have pneumonia? Maybe "expected" but we need to know. Serious implications on his course of illness.
— Leana Wen, M.D. (@DrLeanaWen) October 4, 2020
2/ We've already had reporting that the President panicked on Thursday night when his symptoms first began. The logical read of Conley's statement is that they're worried about freaking the President out and making him de-compensate and accelerate his illness.
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) October 4, 2020
I also have a sense that all of the analysis may be distorted by Trump demanding, and his doctors not being able to deny, treatments that are inappropriate for his condition, leading to misleading outside assessment.
— NotNecessarilyHat (@Popehat) October 4, 2020
From a thread by a professional:
b/ Biggest news is that T had 2 episodes of hypoxia (down to 93-94% O2 saturation), & Conley evaded whether sat was ever <90. "Never in low 80s" is all he offered.
c/ Re: Chest CT: "There were some expected findings but nothing of concern." What the hell does that mean?…(2/8)
— Bob Wachter (@Bob_Wachter) October 4, 2020
f/ Yes, they could give his last doses of IV remdesivir in WH, but still risky to discharge. In RECOVERY trial (which proved value of dexamethasone), mortality rate in TREATMENT group for pts requiring O2 was 23.3% (vs. 26.2% in usual care). A nearly 1-in-4 risk of death. (6/8)
— Bob Wachter (@Bob_Wachter) October 4, 2020
Bottom line: it seems like Trump is stable, but remains at high risk, given transient hypoxemia, some findings on chest imaging. The happy talk and evasions are clearly at Trump's direction, putting the docs in a terrible position. No way he's ready for discharge tomorrow. (8/8)
— Bob Wachter (@Bob_Wachter) October 4, 2020
This line that Trump was heroically out there serving his people by going to rallies and country club fundraisers seems designed for an audience of one person.
— Ben Rhodes (@brhodes) October 4, 2020
This wins the internet. ???? pic.twitter.com/5W2AmAAriR
— Ana Navarro-Cárdenas (@ananavarro) October 4, 2020
rikyrah
He finds doctors who are clowns ?
They are still lying about when he knew that he was positive??
Platonicspoof
Does some sort of alarm go off in the middle of the night when John thinks the blog is starved for posts?
West of the Rockies
Thank you, Anne, for this assemblage of observations and opinions. Taken in concert, they’re pretty intriguing. President Big-Boy Pants needs to stay on medical lockdown.
CaseyL
@Platonicspoof: We insomniacs out on the West Coast hope so!
Sab
His treatment drugs cause mood swings, with rages, mania, depression anger.
Seriously, on him how could we tell?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
true, and there was no Addison’s Disease pandemic in 1962
Anoniminous
I think Trump should call a meeting with the Republican leadership, the GOP Senate leadership, and the Senators in the Judiciary committee at his hospital suite so they can have photos taken of them without masks and then they can discuss strategy for Barrett’s SCOTUS nomination and end by hugging, kissing and licking each other’s eyeballs. This would show the American people how manly the GOP is and how they won’t be held hostage by a Chinese disease.
I offer this advice with the best interest of Trump and the Republican Party in mind.
Pete Downunder
From the land down under my informal and wildly unscientific poll is that with one expat redneck exception, everyone want him gone. The most sophisticated want him to live until 4 November, the rest just want him gone and the sooner the better. In related news CA just reported to me that they received my mail in ballot and it will be counted. For us ex pats we vote in the US jurisdiction where we last lived before fleeing the country.
cain
So I guess COVID is watching through Trump eh? Can’t tell it the truth or anything!
More seriously, a freaked out President could have all kinds of issues including high blood pressure that comes with high anxiety. It might be they are letting his natural over confidence hopefully help in recovering rather than freaking him out when he is watching the TV.
KsSteve
@Sab: I’m beginning to think access to the nuclear launch codes might be contraindicated.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@West of the Rockies:
Yes, but he’s bored.
piratedan
mentioned this a few threads back, so I’ll do some backtracking… he’s on the Dex, which is usually reserved for patients that are trending from Moderate to Severe.. plus its been admitted that he’s had two bouts where his O2 levels have dipped, ok, maybe not into the low 80’s but that implies that into the 80’s … somewhere. The stuff he’s on makes patients a bit manic, so we have a hypochondriac patient, demanding the ability to go “do something” even though all medical practice that we see in the private sector would end up with getting security called and the patient maybe even being placed under restraints. Instead this guy gets to have a nice little ride to get some face time with his supporters violating all ethical quarantine rules for infectious patients.
#1) the secret service agents now have to go into quarantine and testing
#2) the hospital has to disinfect the route that was taken to and from the SUV (on top of simply running a hospital during a pandemic)
#3) If this was a public/private hospital, right now the state authorities would be getting a phone call and a few faxes asking them to review said hospital’s Infection Control Protocol because nobody lets infectious patients out of their room to go do whatever the fuck they want even under highly controlled circumstances… down to radiology, or for a CT Scan or surgery.. yeah, that happens, leaving the hospital… NOPE, unless they’re signing paperwork discharging themselves against medical advice.
Licenses get pulled and fines get issued and Medical Directors and nurses get fired simply because of the liability.
this fucker, is gonna continue to kill people needlessly and the GOP is gonna let him do it because they’re just as uncaring and unfeeling as he is.
Sab
@KsSteve: I have been a bit worried about that for a couple of years.
Morzer
Interestingly, YouGov have been polling Harris v Pence and Biden v Pence. Harris is up by 1 – 3 points, while Biden is up by 7 – 8 points.
sukabi
so a question for you all…in this “I learned Covid” video, is it just me or does this seem like it was made as a campaign ad… The script is just wrong for someone who’s supposed to be sick and in quarantine…. I know it’s drumpf…but still…
https://twitter.com/Jordanfabian/status/1312866591923744769?s=20
dm
One of the twitter threads I saw contained a tweet that said, approximately
West of the Rockies
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Bored? Oh dear, poor lil’ guy. Somebody get him a fistfull of gummy worms and put on some cartoons. Also, he needs a fresh pair of footy-jams.
sukabi
@Morzer: Harris has girl parts (and she’s not ____)
Both those things are a problem for a bunch of people…..still. it’s exhausting.
lgerard
So ordinary people cannot be with their parents or spouses as they spend their last few moments before departing for a better place, but this clown can have Scavino, his twitter wrangler come and spend a few hours with him?
Morzer
@sukabi: Indeed it is. I suspect that Harris doesn’t have Biden’s name-recognition, which probably accounts for some of the gap.
John Revolta
@dm: Heh. “The President is out of danger.”
mrmoshpotato
Is that’s the medical term? JFC!
Eljai
@Pete Downunder: Thank you for early voting! Did you post to the “I voted” thread to the right so you can get your sticker? Talked to my mom (who has not hugged her grandkids in 8 months) in the midwest tonight and she is definitely in the let’s-get-this-fucker-out-already category. Ballots for my CA county will be mailed out tomorrow. Here’s me waiting for the mail delivery person.
mrmoshpotato
And, may I suggest, Dump contracting a deadly, highly-transmittable disease for which there is no known vaccine currently!
Some of these people need to be slapped upside the head!
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Anoniminous: I think the conservative wing of the Supreme Court need to be part of these planning sessions also.
the pollyanna from hell
I like patients whose case management does not require mass casualties.
Mag
Dr. Sean Conley seems like he is channelling Dr. Nick Riviera from The Simpsons.
smike
@the pollyanna from hell:
I like preznits who don’t get captured by the covid.
sanjeevs
@John Revolta: He’s looking down. Maybe he’s looking up.
Pete Downunder
@Eljai: I didn’t do the I Voted thing but I have been very impressed with Marin County’s efficiency. They sent me an email with my ballot and a code number and a template for the envelope. I filled in the ballot, cut and pasted the envelope template onto an envelope and mailed it off. Two weeks later (the mail to the US is very slow these days) they emailed me to say the ballot had been received. If I was willing to waive the secret ballot and had access to a fax machine I could have faxed it.
montanareddog
If he does discharge himself prematurely and starts his country club fundraisers again, it will be interesting to see:
TS (the original)
@Pete Downunder:
As a citizen of the land down under, today I went and visited a friend who I have not seen since March. I was bothered because in prior times he was a MAGA supporter.
I was so pleased, and it made my day, that he has changed his mind most forcefully & wanted to tell me same.
He was one of only two people I know, who were trump fans. One down, one to go.
Pete Downunder
@TS (the original): I am now happily a dual citizen. The one American I know here who is a Trumper is pretty much rusted on. The other ex pats I know are all Biden/Harris.
patrick II
@sukabi:
The Lincoln Project has an ad out in response to that Trump speech the last line of which is “It’s too late”.
Aside from the politics and, with 209,000 dead, it’s too late to figure out COVID was a serious problem, the anti-intellectualism is chilling. “This is real learning, not from a book” as if everything has to be first hand experience and educating yourself outside of that is not useful — just book learnin’.
Now that Trump has that first hand knowledge though, I am sure he is a regular epidemiologist. Now he can explain to Dr. Fauci the next steps needed to fight the pandemic.
Ian
I can’t help but think in 2000 years the new expression will be “tweeting while Rome burned”. He wants to get back to doing campaign events?
He is sick, being given whatever the F* he wants, literally is being the # 1 super-spreader, is being given medication that’s side effect is massive mood swings, and still not one person in his orbit has the power or ability to tell him no? I guess these people were not hired for their strong moral fiber. The sheer magnitude of how utterly mindbogglingly hypocritical this crew is being while the rest of the country endures what his own henchgoon calls the worst civil rights restrictions in history?(not agreeing, just pointing out)
The sheer level of grotesquery of this all is hard to fathom that this has been since Thursday. And it has drowned out the really disturbing shit that we were all talking about Tuesday.
TS (the original)
@Pete Downunder:
I would think the main trump supporter here is the Prime Minister. Not sure what he might be thinking about the current situation.
Despite the moans/groans, I keep thinking how lucky we have been in the actions of our political leaders related to this virus. The Premiers have stopped the PM from getting too out of line.
sempronia
We start dexamethasone when a person’s oxygen saturation drops below 92% and they are put on supplemental oxygen. It’s a ten-day course, 10mg three times a day. Patients may still be in a regular ward, not in an ICU. We ask people to stay in bed and lie on their stomachs, as much as they can tolerate (self-proning).
Remdesivir (five day course) is given to patients who need ICU care.
If the lungs get so diseased that they can’t exchange oxygen for CO2, the patient may need ECMO, which is lung bypass – the blood comes out of a vein through a cannula, is oxygenated in a machine, and goes back into an artery. Average ECMO time is about 21 days (for all types of lung disease – I’m not sure what it is for COVID patients in particular). You’re sedated and paralyzed the whole time, and you definitely can’t take little SUV jaunts out to see your idiot supporters.
I have no experience with the monoclonal antibody cocktail that Trump got. We were part of a clinical trial for one, and at least two people got the drug (or placebo), but we didn’t think it did much for them. That was pretty early in the pandemic though – guess they know more about it now.
All COVID patients are on a blood thinner at low, prophylactic doses (enoxaparin or heparin).
And that is all the treatment we’ve got. All of it. Plus the regular ICU care, of course, for all the other systems that fail in the course of the disease. I’ll be shocked if he leaves Walter Reed tomorrow.
Pete Downunder
@TS (the original): Morrison is evil but has done a surprisingly credible job on COVID. He is a Trumper.
I’m in QLD and our premier is doing well I think against a lot of pressure.
Chris T.
@sempronia: Oh, so it’s driven by O2 sat numbers now, not days-after-symptoms? That makes some sense. (“It” being dexamethasone treatment, here)
sempronia
@Chris T.: yeah, needing supplemental oxygen is the trigger for starting dexamethasone.
TS (the original)
@sempronia:
Thanks. This is the information that the doctors to the V.I.P.s don’t seem able to explain. What really irks me is someone who supposedly is leading the country, spreading disease everywhere he goes
@Pete Downunder:
Morrison started really well, but got hooked up in politics and “opening up the country” too soon. He now seems to be reverting to “trickle down” the policy long proven to increase the difference between the haves and the have nots.
Outside of Victoria (where it became near impossible) the contact tracing has been amazing which causes much jaw dropping when looking at the lack of same at the White House.
I will be extremely surprised if Labor doesn’t win the Qld election. 4 weeks out & minimal campaigning. Trump has been campaigning for 4 years!
I’m also in Qld & haven’t seen the daughter & granddaughter other than on video links since February. We’re hoping for a wonderful Christmas together.
Sloane Ranger
Best case scenario the WH doctor is a military officer and feels he has to obey orders from the Commander in Chief providing they are not actually totally in la la land. They’re not giving him hydroxithingy for example (as far as we know).
Worse case, someone said a few days ago that the guy had been recommended by former WH doctor and current Trumpist candidate, Ronnie Jackson, so he may be part of the cult or, just a careerist, hoping he too will be made an Admiral/General if he pleases the boss.
Ruckus
@sempronia:
Well he is the president. All those people work for him and he knows all, he’s the smartest Man in the world. He paid people to take medical school for him, that’s how smart he is. And he’s bored because there’s no one there to steal from or lord anything over and the guys in the white coats have the keys to all the meds so he can’t get high and make the day shorter.
OK, that shows how much time I have on my hands these days.
Luciamia
How’s that October advent calendar going?
Sally
@Pete Downunder: It’s funny that there are trumpoid republicans living of their own free will in the socialist hell hole that is Australia.
I knew a dual citizen who was a keen trumpoid, and was returning to Australia because he didn’t want to bring his kids up in the US. SMH.
prostratedragon
@mrmoshpotato: It’s probably the staff term for how they intend to release him.
mrmoshpotato
@prostratedragon: Loaded into a slingshot and fired into the Atlantic?
Ruckus
@mrmoshpotato:
They just want to get rid of him as fast as possible because he thinks he knows far more than they do but the only thing he knows is what the inside of his colon looks like, because he stores his head up there. There is only so much they can do for him and I’d bet he’s a really, really good patient. You have to wonder how badly did someone screw up to get appointed his doctor in charge? I’d bet it was epic.
Shalimar
@Platonicspoof: Considering that Anne Laurie schedules detailed curated posts for the periods when others don’t usually post, dearths are very rare. John is like the boss who plays golf all day,then comes in after all the employees pulled a double shift to get a big order out and complains about how quiet it is.
Boris Rasputin (the evil twin)
So, Covid isn’t a hoax anymore?
I hear an odd noise in the background? What does a ventilator sound like?
StringOnAStick
@sempronia: Thank you for that detailed explanation!
patrick Il
Of course he does. He needs the love. And his people will show up without masks because it has been clearly shown that bravado can beat COVID . Along with million dollar medical care of course.