Trump Is Going To The Hospital As He Fights COVID-19

President Donald Trump will fly by helicopter to the hospital on Friday afternoon, less than 24 hours after he tested positive for the coronavirus.

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said Trump will spend “several days” there “working.”

“President Trump remains in good spirits, has mild symptoms, and has been working throughout the day. Out of an abundance of caution, and at the recommendation of his physician and medical experts, the President will be working from the presidential offices at Walter Reed for the next few days. President Trump appreciates the outpouring of support for both he and the First Lady,” White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said.

Trump’s hospitalization comes after he spent months downplaying the seriousness of COVID-19, holding large campaign rallies, and refusing to wear a mask with rare exceptions. He continued traveling and campaigning in recent months, including flying on Air Force One with multiple White House officials to a campaign event in New Jersey on Thursday after his top aide Hope Hicks had tested positive.

Trump had canceled his entire schedule on Friday — an incredible development after he insisted on pandemic rallies where masses of people, many unmasked, crammed in to see him. Pence — defying the CDC’s quarantine guidelines — will continue campaigning.

The president has not made any public appearances since Thursday, Oct. 1. He has also not tweeted since announcing his positive diagnosis just before 1 a.m. Friday morning. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Sen. Lindsey Graham said they spoke to Trump by phone on Friday about the Supreme Court vacancy.

Trump’s son, Eric, tweeted Friday before the president took off for the hospital that his father is a “true warrior” and asked Americans to join in “praying for his recovery.”

If the president becomes incapacitated, Vice President Mike Pence can take over Trump’s duties under a process outlined in the 25th Amendment to the Constitution and serve in an acting role if the president authorizes the action. (A different section of the 25th Amendment allows the vice president and cabinet to force the issue, but that part of the amendment has never been invoked.) Pence most recently tested negative for the virus on Friday, according to his spokesperson.

Trump’s physician offered a brief statement about his condition on Friday, less than 15 hours after Trump said he contracted COVID-19, a disease that just months ago the president insisted would just “disappear.”

The White House physician, Sean P. Conley, wrote in a memo Friday that Trump remained “fatigued but in good spirits.”

That notion lightly conflicted with press secretary Kayleigh McEnany’s comments to Fox News that Trump staffers needed to “hold him back a little here because he is hard at work.” And it didn’t include reporting from White House journalists who say Trump is experiencing a low-grade fever, a light cough, and congestion.

Trump, as a precautionary measure, “received a single 8 gram dose of Regeneron’s polyclonal antibody cocktail,” Conley wrote, adding he’s also been taking “zinc, vitamin D, famotidine, melatonin and a daily aspirin.”

Recent results from Regeneron’s experimental synthetic antibody treatment have indicated that, when administered early in an infection to non-hospitalized patients, the treatment could reduce the amounts of virus in the body and lead to shorter hospital stays. No treatments for COVID-19 have yet been approved by the FDA. But companies can grant emergency access to experimental treatments under FDA’s “compassionate use” guidelines. Regeneron’s CEO is a long-time acquaintance of Trump’s.

“He’s being evaluated by a team of experts,” Conley said, adding they will recommend next steps soon. First lady Melania Trump, who also tested positive, has a “mild cough” and headache.

It’s unclear how severe Trump’s illness is. At 74, the president has a higher risk of a severe case of COVID-19 due to his age and his weight; his medical disclosure in June puts him at 244 pounds, just over the threshold for obesity for his height. It is unknown if he has any underlying medical conditions that would also contribute to his risk of severe illness. Trump will, however, have access to the best medical care in the world.

As recently as mid-September, Trump touted herd immunity as a way to combat the coronavirus, suggesting the virus was “going away.” His administration’s mishandling of the pandemic has led to more than 200,000 deaths in the US.

There is a month left before the election. Trump is scheduled to meet former vice president Joe Biden for their second presidential debate on Oct. 15 and there was no immediate decision on whether it will be postponed or canceled due to his illness.

In April, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson was admitted to the ICU, 10 days after testing positive for the coronavirus and having his symptoms worsen. Five days later, Johnson was released. He has recovered.

There is still no cure for COVID-19, and there are still no approved treatments. But since April, options for managing severe symptoms have improved considerably, leading to a decline in death rates and better outcomes for those hospitalized.

Many patients will require help getting oxygen to their lungs, initially administered nasally or through a mask, or by flipping them onto their stomachs, which can help open up their lungs to breathe. If a patient is in severe respiratory distress, doctors could choose to move them onto a ventilator, a machine that mechanically moves air in and out of the lungs. Since using ventilators is a more invasive procedure that requires intubating patients, doctors are still divided on when they are a necessary intervention.

But for hospitalized patients, two treatments have so far proven the most helpful: a cheap steroid called dexamethasone, which was shown to reduce deaths in severely ill patients by a third, and an antiviral drug called Remdesivir, which received emergency authorization by the FDA in May. Neither has yet gone through the FDA’s rigorous approval process, which would require conclusive evidence that they are safe and effective.

So far, Trump’s physician has disclosed that he has been receiving Regeneron’s experimental antibody treatment. A second synthetic antibody treatment made by Eli Lilly has also shown promise.

Throughout the pandemic, Trump boosted several treatment options that are unproven or considered dangerous, at one point suggesting that experts shine ultraviolet light inside the body to eliminate the virus, or inject people with disinfectants.

Most notably, amid pressure from Trump, the FDA issued an emergency authorization for hydroxychloroquine, later revoking it after studies showed that it was ineffective and could cause heart problems. In August, Trump pushed for the FDA to issue an emergency authorization for convalescent plasma, an intervention which uses the antibodies from people who have recovered from COVID-19, but has not yet been shown to be effective in rigorous clinical trials.

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