President Trump’s doctors said Sunday that he gained the steroid dexamethasone after reducing oxygen levels on Saturday, the most recent progression in his remedy for COVID-19. The World Health Organization recommends dexamethasone for patients who are “seriously ill” with COVID-19, but the White House medical team said Trump’s symptoms had improved.
The president also dealt with a cocktail of experimental drugs and remdesivir, for which the Food and Drug Administration issued an emergency use authorization to treat COVID-19.
Trump entered Walter Reed Medical Center on Friday and, despite assurances from the White House and Trump himself on Twitter, the immediate escalation of his positive checkup to the onset of symptoms has left the country in trouble.
CBS News medical contributor Dr. David Agus said Sunday that Trump takes “the toughest drugs with proven benefits, namely the monoclonal antibodies, remdesivir and dexamethasone. ” But, Agus cautioned, dexamethasone is a “very strong steroid that can have effects on the brain. “
“There may be a manic habit related to dexamethasone, so it’s vital that we perceive it,” Agus said Sunday. “Dexamethasone is a very strong drug. When used at the beginning of this infection, it can worsen the situation by blocking immune function. When used late, it can treat significant lung inflammation, which I suppose it has. “
Trump was given oxygen at the White House on Friday before being admitted to Walter Reed’s home, but doctors declined to say whether he was also receiving oxygen on Saturday. White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows told Fox News on Saturday that Trump had a fever and that “his blood oxygen levels had dropped rapidly” on Friday before Trump. Trump doesn’t pass Walter Reed’s.
When asked Sunday about lung damage, Mr. M. ‘s doctor. Trump, Dr. Sean Conley, said that “there are expected effects, nothing clinically troubling. “
Dr. Bob Lahita, professor of medicine at New York Medical College and president of the St. John’s Department of Medicine. John’s University Hospital told CBSN on Friday that caution was justified.
“It can happen in a very short time, which means you can be fine and 3 hours later get extraordinarily ill, and that’s very, very important,” Lahita said.
The president won an 8-gram singles dose of Regeneron’s monoclonal antibody cocktail, which is still undergoing a Phase 3 clinical trial, and initial knowledge of 275 non-hospitalized patients appears to “this reduced viral load and the time it took to relieve symptoms,” the corporate said in a press last week.
The president also receives a five-day remedy for remdesivir, an antiviral drug, a remedy that has not yet been recommended for patients with mild COVID-19. Trump’s doctor, Conley, said Saturday night that Trump. Trump had won a momentary dose of “uncomplicated” recreation.
Lately there is “insufficient data” to propose “for or against the use of remdesivir in patients with mild or moderate COVID-19”, according to the COVID-19 remedy guidelines of the National Institutes of Health.
The NIH warned that they opposed its use unless a coVID-19 patient also asked for additional oxygen, something the White House had first said the president was not being treated, before admitting Sunday that he had gained oxygen on Friday.
“The Panel recommends that priority be given to remdesivir for use in patients hospitalized with COVID-19 who require more oxygen but do not require an oxygen source, a high-performance device, noninvasive ventilation, invasive mechanical ventilation, or extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO), “read the NIH guidelines.
According to Dr. Matthew Heinz, a hospital doctor who has previously worked for the Obama Administration’s Department of Health and Human Services, administering oxygen to a positive COVID-19 patient with respiratory disorders is a non-unusual practice. be surprised if, for example, he had a very low oxygen point in his move to the facility, which is not unusual for EMS,” Heinz told CBSN after the press conference.
When asked about the likelihood that he would want additional oxygen in the coming days, Conley told reporters Saturday morning that the president probably wouldn’t want to go ahead, but Heinz said the likelihood of oxygen with patients is uncertain.
“I don’t have a concept of my patients who have coronavirus when they go into the hospital if they’re okay or if they’re going to be connected to a respirator the next day, and that’s because it’s very unpredictable,” Heinz said.
According to the NIH, initial re-ivir analyses showed that “no advantages were observed from obtaining a matrix . . . people with COVID-19 who don’t want additional oxygen. ” However, the company noted that the organization of the trial was “relatively small” and the drug is being recently evaluated in some other clinical trial for the remedy of patients with “COVID-19 moderate”.
According to Conley, the president “continued to improve” and may return to the White House to continue the remedy as soon as Monday.
NIH recommends that patients who obtain supplemental oxygen get repopulation for “5 days or until discharge from the hospital, depending on the first eventuality. “
According to Heinz, the remedy with remdesivir sometimes does not start without an imaging diagnosis, such as a chest x-ray or chest scan, which shows “infiltrated or a trend of viral infection, viral pneumonia, somewhere in the lungs”. who believed it was justified to treat the President of the United States with a competitive remedy plan, questioned the lack of data provided through the White House doctor.
“There have been studies showing that the remedy with remdesivir is really helping other people with milder symptoms like the president, so I think it was a smart thing to do,” he said. “But we haven’t won a report, for example, of a chest x-ray or an express indication of lung function, and I don’t understand why. “
“Don’t send the doctor at all if you can’t give us a full clinical picture of what’s going on. Because overall it seemed to be going well, and it’s getting better . . . Then why put things aside?”
In addition to Regeneron’s antibody cocktail and redesivir, Conley also noted that M. Trump takes zinc, vitamin D, famotidine (the drug in Pepcid, for acidity or acid reflux), melatonin and aspirin. Trump’s age, weight and gender place him in a high-risk position of more severe coronavirus disease.
Lahita said the president has only a “comorability,” an underlying medical condition that puts the user at increased threat of serious illness and likely responds to treatment. “Assuming you don’t have diabetes, high blood pressure, chronic lung disease, central illness, that’s fine,” he said.
Lahita said he was sure that the president belongs to the giant category of other people recovering from COVID-19, but under pressure that the unpredictable virus offers few guarantees.
“Most people don’t have any challenges to control this virus, and I’m sure the president will be perfectly fine,” he said. “However, it’s like a Russian roulette wheel. We don’t know who’s going to get really, really in poor health. “and end up with a fan. We saw other healthy young men in the hospital under a fan. “