President Trump doing well, with no fever, no difficulty breathing: Doctors

Team Udayavani, Oct 4, 2020, 8:18 AM IST

Washington: President Donald Trump, who was admitted to a military hospital for treatment of COVID-19, is in “exceptionally good spirits” and has been “fever free” for the last 24 hours, his doctors said on Saturday.

“President has been fever free for over 24 hours,” Trump”s physician Dr. Sean Conley said in his first update on the president”s health on Saturday.

Speaking outside the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, where 74-year-old Trump was admitted on Friday, Dr. Conley said the president had a “mild cough and some nasal congestion, fatigue” on Thursday, “all of which are resolving and improving.”

“This morning, the President is doing very well,” he said. “At this time the team and I are extremely happy with the progress the President has made.”

On Saturday morning, Trump tweeted, “Going well, I think! Thank you to all. LOVE!!!”

Later in the day, Trump thanked doctors, nurses and the medical staff.

“Doctors, Nurses and ALL at the GREAT Walter Reed Medical Center, and others from likewise incredible institutions who have joined them, are AMAZING!!!Tremendous progress has been made over the last 6 months in fighting this PLAGUE. With their help, I am feeling well!” he tweeted.

The president is just 72 hours into the diagnosis now, Dr. Conley said, noting that the first week of COVID-19 and in particular day seven to 10 are most critical in determining the likely course of this illness.

Another doctor, Col. Sean N Dooley, said that President Trump is not on oxygen and is not having difficulty breathing or walking around.

“He is in exceptionally good spirits,” he said. “We are monitoring him very closely for any evidence of complications from either the coronavirus illness or the therapies that we are prescribing to make him better,” CNN quoted him as saying.

Dooley said the president”s cardiac, kidney and liver functions were all normal this morning.

Trump, who showed “mild symptoms” of COVID-19, was flown to Walter Reed Military Medical Centre in Bethesda, a Maryland suburb of Washington DC, on Friday. Trump walked from his residence to take Marine One at the South Lawns of the White House to travel to Walter Reed hospital.

Trump and his wife First Lady Melania Trump, 50, tested positive for COVID-19 on Friday, a development that upended the Republican leader’s election campaign just weeks before the presidential polls on November 3.

While the president was taken to the military hospital, the first lady stayed back at the White House.

Conley said the president was moved to the military hospital as a precautionary measure, in consultations with a team of doctors, to provide state of the art monitoring and any care that he may need.

About 48 hours ago, the president received a special antibody therapy directed against the coronavirus, his doctors said. On Friday, he received his first dose of IV Remdesivir, and the plan of his team is to continue a five-day treatment course for Remdesivir.

The big plan for Saturday, another doctor said, 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 things that he needs to do to get well.

The Trump administration had issued an emergency use authorisation for Remdesivir earlier this year after the drug showed moderate effectiveness in improving outcomes for patients who were hospitalised with the coronavirus.

The president and the First Family First Lady, Conley said, are extremely grateful for the enormous outpouring of support and prayers that the whole world and country have been providing and sharing. The First Lady, who also tested positive for COVID19, is doing great, he said.

He said that he does not want to put a hard date on the discharge of the president.

“I don”t want to put a hard date on that. He”s doing so well. But with known courses for the illness, day seven to 10 we get really concerned about the inflammatory phase, phase II.

“Given that we provided some of these advanced therapies so early in the course a little bit early, most of the patients we know and follow, it”s hard to tell where he is on that course. So, every day we”re evaluating does he need to be here? What does he need? And where”s he going?” said the doctor.

Trump had fever on Thursday and Friday. Since Friday morning, he had none, he said.

Conley earlier said the president was “fatigued but in good spirits”.

“I am happy to report that the president is doing well,” Conley said in a health bulletin on Friday night, the first after the president was moved to the military hospital.

In a video shared on Twitter, Trump said he is “doing very well” and thanked people for their support.

“I think I’m doing very well but we”re going to make sure that things work out,” Trump said in the 18-second video that he tweeted moments after he arrived at the military hospital.

Conley earlier said that as a precautionary measure the president received a single 8-gram dose of Regeneron’s polyclonal antibody cocktail. “He completed the infusion without the incident,” the doctor said.

In addition to the polyclonal antibodies, the president has been taking zinc, vitamin D, famotidine, melatonin and a daily aspirin, he said.

Republican Senators Thom Tillis and Mike Lee, Trump Campaign Manager Bill Stepien, former White House counselor Kellyanne Conway and three White House journalists tested positive for COVID-19, joining several officials working at the presidential palace to have contracted the infection.