Everything We Know (and Don’t) About Trump’s Health Right Now
Here’s what the president’s doctors said — and didn’t say
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Updated 3:50 pm 10/5/20: There were no significant changes regarding Trump’s health made public at the Monday news conference. Dr. Conley provided no additional information on the president’s medications, scans, or date of disease onset. He said Trump’s tweets are an indication of his mental status.
Donald Trump is not doing well. Or he’s doing great! Depends on whom you ask. The President’s medical team has been cagey and at times deliberately misleading about his condition, but we do have some information about the progression of his illness over the weekend.
Despite the rosy picture painted by the White House physicians, Trump — who is in several high-risk categories based on his age, weight, sex, and medical history — is currently being treated as if his case of Covid-19 is severe. In a briefing given Sunday, however, it sounded as if his condition is improving.
What are his vitals?
Fever
On Sunday, White House physician Sean Conley, DO, stated the president had a high fever on Friday, but he would not say how high it had been. Pulmonologist Sean Dooley, MD, followed up to say that Trump had been fever-free since then. Neither physician provided information about whether Trump had been given medication to lower his temperature, although the president does take a daily aspirin, which can act as a fever reducer at high doses.
Celine Gounder, MD, an infectious disease expert at NYU Langone, says the question of whether Trump has taken another fever-reducing medication, such as Advil (ibuprofen) or Tylenol (acetaminophen), is important. “If the fever came down on its own, that’s a very good sign prognostically. If the fever required medication to come down […] it wouldn’t necessarily mean he’s getting better, it would just mean he’s gotten rid of the fever,” she says.
