White House clarifies Trump’s condition after Covid infection

New York, Sunday

US President Donald Trump’s condition on Friday after testing positive for the coronavirus was far worse than was publicly acknowledged, White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows said late Saturday.

“He’s made unbelievable improvements from yesterday morning, when I know a number of us, the doctor and I, were very concerned,” Meadows told Fox News in an interview.

“I can tell you this the biggest thing we see is with no fever now, and with him doing really well with his oxygen saturation levels,” he adds.

“Yesterday morning we were really concerned by that. He had a fever, and his oxygen level had dropped rapidly. Yet in typical style, this president was up and walking around.”

Meadows said there was never a risk Trump would have to hand over power to US Vice President Mike Pence, after a day of conflicting reports and confusion over the American leader’s actual fitness.

His comments echoed remarks by White House doctor Sean Conley, who said Trump had “made substantial progress since diagnosis, and remained “fever-free and off supplemental oxygen.”

Late Saturday, Conley said Trump was “not yet out of the woods,” but that the medical team is “cautiously optimistic.”

Conley was evasive when asked earlier whether the president had received supplementary oxygen at any point since falling ill, only confirming that he hadn’t received any at the hospital or on Thursday — the day of his positive test.

Several US media outlets said Trump was on oxygen at the White House on Friday before being admitted to Walter Reed.

Conley added to the confusion by suggesting that Trump had been diagnosed on Wednesday — not on Thursday, per the official account — but he later said he had misspoken.

Soon after Trump arrived at the hospital, Conley said in a memo the president was starting a course of remdesivir and had received an eight-gram dose of an experimental antibody cocktail.

Neither Trump’s doctors nor the White House explained why the president was taking unproven drugs if his progress was satisfactory.

The US president was also reported to wonder aloud if he would die from the virus.

Meanwhile, nearly two-thirds of Americans believe Trump likely would not have contracted COVID-19 if he had taken the coronavirus pandemic more seriously, according to a poll released Sunday.

Asked “if President Trump had taken coronavirus more seriously, he probably would not have been infected,” 65 percent of respondents to the Reuters/Poll poll agreed. Among registered Democrats, nine in 10 said they agreed, while five out 10 Republicans did.

Overall, 57% said they disapproved of Trump’s handling of the pandemic. The poll also had Democratic challenger Joe Biden opening up a 10 point percentage lead over Trump ahead of the presidential elections on November 3, suggesting no increase in support for the US president after he tested positive.