Trump at risk of ‘reversal’ in COVID-19 recovery, Fauci warns. ‘Still early enough’
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious diseases expert, said President Donald Trump’s coronavirus recovery could still “have a reversal” because he’s “still early enough in the disease.”
Trump tested positive for the virus on Thursday and was moved to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, on Friday. Trump’s blood oxygen levels dropped twice in recent days, according to Trump’s medical team. Trump was released from the hospital and returned to the White House on Monday evening, with his medical team saying at a news conference that Trump “may not be entirely out of the woods yet” but his medical condition supported his discharge from Walter Reed.
“He looks fine as you can see the way he looked when he came out of the hospital,” Fauci told CNN on Monday night.
“The issue is that he’s still early enough in the disease that it’s no secret that if you look at the clinical course of people sometimes, when you’re five to eight days in, you can have a reversal. A reversal meaning going in the wrong direction and getting into trouble,” Fauci continued. “It’s unlikely that it will happen, but there need to be heads up for it.”
Medical experts say Trump’s age, sex and weight could put him at a higher risk of getting seriously ill, with some warning that the illness “can escalate quickly” after the early stages of the virus, NBC News reported.
Trump said in a video posted to Twitter on Monday evening, “One thing’s for certain: Don’t let it dominate you.”
“We have the best medical equipment, we have the best medicines, all developed recently,” Trump said. “I know there’s a risk, there’s a danger, but that’s OK. And now I’m better, and maybe I’m immune, I don’t know.”
Presidential physician Dr. Sean Conley said at the briefing Monday that Trump will continue to receive steroids and a fifth and final dose of remdesivir, an anti-viral medication, at the White House on Tuesday, McClatchy News reported.
“He’s back and up to his old self,” Conley said.
More than 210,000 people in the United States have died from COVID-19, according to Johns Hopkins University, and there have been more than 7.4 million confirmed cases.
This story was originally published October 6, 2020 at 10:31 AM with the headline "Trump at risk of ‘reversal’ in COVID-19 recovery, Fauci warns. ‘Still early enough’."