Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Trump touts Rxs in covid bout
President meets with aides on hurricane, stimulus effort
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Wednesday credited an experimental drug treatment with helping his recovery from covid-19 and said he wants the same level of care for all Americans during the nation’s battle against the pandemic.
In a new White House video posted Wednesday evening, Trump said his illness had shed light on an experimental antibody cocktail that he credited for his improved condition. Sensitive to the fact that his treatment course is far more comprehensive than the care received by average Americans, he promised to swiftly get the drugs approved for use — and distribute them for free.
“I want everybody to be given the same treatment as your president, because I feel great,” Trump said from the Rose Garden. “I feel like perfect.”
Still, questions continue about the trajectory of his recovery and when he might be able to return to normal activities, including cam
paigning, less than four weeks before Election Day.
Trump received an experimental antiviral cocktail made by Regeneron through a “compassionate use” exemption, a recognition of the above-and-beyond standard of care he receives as president. The safety and effectiveness of the drug have not yet been proved. And there is no way for the president or his doctors to know that the drug had any effect.
Most people recover from covid-19.
The president also spent months painting the anti-malarial drug, hydroxychloroquine, as a treatment for the virus — even taking a preventive course himself — even though experts are mixed on its effectiveness against covid-19.
In the video, Trump promised those who are ill are going to “get better fast just like I did.”
More than 211,000 people in the U.S. and more than 1 million worldwide have died from the disease. There have been more than 7.5 million recorded cases in the U.S., according to a running tally by Johns Hopkins University.
Trump posted the video on Twitter on Wednesday after aides said he had returned to the Oval Office for a briefing on Hurricane Delta, which is bearing down on the U.S. Gulf Coast, and on economic stimulus prospects — despite still being contagious two days after he was discharged from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on Monday.
Aides insisted that only limited staff members were around him and that he entered the office from the outside to limit exposure.
DRUGS COCKTAIL
Trump’s doctor reported Wednesday that the president continued to make progress in his recovery.
Dr. Sean Conley, the White House physician, said Trump had declared, “I feel great!”
Conley added in a memo that Trump had been symptom-free for more than 24 hours, and that his oxygen saturation level and respiratory rate were normal. The memo also said a blood test Monday showed that Trump had coronavirus antibodies, substances that fight infection, but he had been given an experimental drug on Friday containing those antibodies.
Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc. says it’s not possible for this type of blood test to distinguish between antibodies Trump’s body may be making and those supplied by the company’s drug. Most likely, the ones detected in the Monday test are from the drug, the company said.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says individuals can discontinue isolation 10 days after the onset of symptoms. While reports of reinfection are rare, the CDC recommends that even people who recover from covid-19 continue to wear masks, stay distanced and follow other precautions.
Doctors said Trump began showing mild symptoms on Oct. 1.
Access to Trump for White House aides has been limited since his discharge. White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and senior adviser Dan Scavino were among those with the president in the Oval Office, according to officials. Those meeting with Trump are required to wear full personal protective gear to minimize their risk of contracting the illness.
Trump could have received his briefings elsewhere in the complex, but the president believed it was important that he work from the Oval Office, according to a White House official who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Meadows, said earlier Wednesday that the president has been eager to leave his residence in the East Wing.
“We’ve got safety protocols there that are not only from the [personal protective equipment] standpoint, but from a ventilation standpoint in the Oval,” he said. Social distancing is mandated “as much as practical,” he added.
AVOIDING WHITE HOUSE
Most other top advisers and aides have fled the White House, either because they are infected and under quarantine at home or are worried that they soon will be. Desks have been abandoned as workers in hazmat suits disinfect work spaces and scrub down surfaces.
And with the iconic white- columned building now a coronavirus hot zone, television reporters who remained on the campus conducted their live shots on the North Lawn at dawn Wednesday.
The president remains contagious, and anyone in close contact with him is supposed to wear a medical gown, gloves, mask and eye protection.
In addition to the president and first lady Melania Trump, infections have spread rapidly at the White House, with at least 14 senior aides, staff members, Republican senators, journalists and others who have visited testing positive for coronavirus since last week.
The list includes press secretary Kayleigh McEnany and Stephen Miller, Trump’s chief speechwriter.
It also includes Kellyanne Conway, who left her post recently as Trump’s chief counselor but returned Sept. 26 to attend the formal introduction of Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett. Barrett had tested positive for the coronavirus over the summer.
The list of infected people at or near the White House also includes lesser-known White House staff members who showed up to work as press aides and personal valets.
Meanwhile, the assistant commandant of the Marine Corps, Gen. Gary L. Thomas, has tested positive for the coronavirus, a spokesman for the Marines said Wednesday.
“He had been in self-quarantine since Tuesday, Oct. 6, out of an abundance of caution following notification of close contact with a person who later tested positive for the virus,” the spokesman, Capt. Joseph Butterfield, said in a statement.
“He is experiencing mild symptoms, but otherwise is feeling well,” Butterfield said.
Several members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, including Gen. Mark Milley, the top American military officer, are also in self-quarantine after the Coast Guard’s vice commandant tested positive for the virus.
In a barrage of tweets Wednesday, Trump pushed out video of South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem speaking of her decision to resist covid-19 restrictions in her state. He also thanked a supporter who tweeted that she “would wade though a sea of covid infested water to vote for President Trump on November 3rd.”
The president also said on Twitter that he had spoken with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards about the hurricane, and urged residents in the path of the storm to be safe.
Trump tried to salvage a few priority items lost in the rubble of covid-19 relief talks that he had cut off a day earlier, pressing for $1,200 stimulus checks, and new aid for airlines and other businesses hard hit by the pandemic.
FAUCI ADVICE
Separately, Dr. Anthony Fauci has joined other health experts refuting the president’s belief that coronavirus is “far less lethal” than the common flu.
Speaking during a Cornell University event Tuesday, the government’s top infectious disease expert said the potential for what covid-19 can do is “very, very much different from influenza.”
“You don’t get a pandemic that kills a million people, and it isn’t even over yet, within influenza,” he told NBC News’ Kate Snow at the virtual event. “So it is not correct to say it’s the same as flu. It has some overlapping symptomatology early on. But flu doesn’t do the things to you that covid-19 can.”
Trump wrote on his social media pages early Tuesday that the seasonal flu kills “sometimes over 100,000,” despite a vaccine.
“Are we going to close down our Country?” he asked. “No, we have learned to live with it, just like we are learning to live with Covid, in most populations far less lethal!!!”
The number of Americans who have died from the flu every year in the past decade has ranged from 12,000 to 61,000, according to data from the CDC. The 100,000 annual benchmark has rarely been reached in U.S. history.
Fauci, who has led the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for more than three decades, acknowledged that coronavirus does cause “flu-like” symptoms in many cases, but he warned the public to take basic precautions because the pandemic is still far from over.
“There are some things that should be universally practiced, and that is the universal wearing of masks, avoiding crowds, keeping a distance, doing things outdoors more than indoors and washing our hands frequently,” he said. “That doesn’t matter who you are. That’s what you should be doing.”
Information for this article was contributed by Zeke Miller, Jill Colvin, Aamer Madhani, Marilynn Marchione, Lauran Neergaard and Jonathan Lemire of The Associated Press; by Nelson Oliveira of The New York Daily News; by Noah Bierman and Eli Stokols of The Los Angeles Times; and by Christopher Anstey and John Harney of Bloomberg News.