The president was taking rosuvastatin, a medicine for cholesterol, finasteride, used to treat an enlarged prostate or hair loss, and aspirin daily.
Walter Reed Medical Complex, 2011, Wikimedia
In 2018, then-White House physician Dr. Ronny Jackson revealed Trump underwent a coronary calcium CT scan that showed the presence of plaque. Dr. Rachel Bond of Lenox Hill Hospital in New York told CNN the score of 133 on the test indicates “he certainly has coronary artery disease because calcium is present. But this is also common for someone his gender, race and age.”
Who in the White House has tested positive over the course of the pandemic?
Before Trump and First Lady Melania Trump revealed they had tested positive for COVID-19, Hope Hicks, counselor to the president, tested positive, as of Oct. 1.
CNN reported that three journalists who work at the White House, as well as a White House staffer in the press area of the West Wing, had tested positive on Oct. 2.
Before these cases, National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien tested positive in late July; campaign fundraiser Kimberly Guilfoyle, the girlfriend of Donald Trump Jr., tested positive the July 4 weekend; and Katie Miller, Pence’s spokesperson, tested positive in early May.
Others testing positive for COVID-19 include an unidentified White House staffer, unidentified member of Pence’s staff, a White House valet, former acting chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers Tomas Philipson, a Marine with the unit operating Marine One, and a cafeteria worker in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building.
Before a Trump campaign rally on June 20, six members of the Trump campaign advance team tested positive, and two more staffers tested positive afterward.
What COVID-19 treatments are available and how effective are they?
Despite Trump’s repeated insistence that great progress has been made on COVID-19 treatment, there are no Food and Drug Administration-approved drugs for COVID-19 and only one medication has been shown in a clinical trial to improve mortality.
As we explained before, when Trump attributed an 85% decline in the case fatality rate since April to “pioneering therapies,” most treatment consists of supportive care. And as University of Pennsylvania infectious disease fellow Dr. Aaron Richterman told us in an email, “We have a long way to go in our treatment.”
In a clinical trial, the antiviral drug remdesivir shortened the time to recovery among hospitalized patients to a median of 11 days from 15 days. The medication received an emergency use authorization, or EUA, from the FDA, but that is limited to use among hospitalized patients.
Convalescent plasma may be effective, but the jury is still out on that — and for now, the National Institutes of Health treatment guidelines do not consider it a standard of care and neither recommend for nor against its use. Like remdesivir, it too is only available under its EUA to those who are hospitalized with COVID-19.
The steroid dexamethasone is the only medication to have demonstrated a survival benefit in COVID-19 patients. As a drug previously approved for other uses, dexamethasone can be given to any patient off-label, but data indicate the drug is only effective for those who need supplemental oxygen — and may harm those with less severe cases. Accordingly, the NIH guidelines do not recommend dexamethasone in patients who do not require supplemental oxygen.
There is hope that a new line of drugs known as monoclonal antibodies will prove to be effective and could serve as a “bridge” until the arrival of a vaccine. These drugs are similar in concept to convalescent plasma, but are made of optimized synthetic antibodies that may be safer and more potent than the antibodies isolated from human plasma.
Although still being tested in clinical trials, at least two companies have announced positive preliminary findings.
On Sept. 16, pharma company Eli Lilly released initial data from a phase 2 trial of its SARS-CoV-2 neutralizing antibody that reported the therapy reduced the amount of virus in outpatients and also cut the rate of hospitalization.
On Sept. 29, biotech company Regeneron similarly announced that its antibody cocktail reduced viral levels and reduced symptoms among non-hospitalized COVID-19 patients.
Neither company, however, has published its data yet and the results should not be viewed as definitive.
As of Oct. 2, there is no reason yet to think the president needs any particular treatment, as his symptoms are mild, and as the FDA notes, people in that category “are able to recover at home.”
Still, Trump’s physician said in the afternoon of Oct. 2 that the president had received an 8 gram dose of Regeneron’s antibody cocktail “as a precautionary measure.” According to Regeneron’s press release, that is the “high” dose the company is currently testing.
What are the testing procedures at the White House?
On April 3, the White House announced that anyone in “close proximity” to Trump and Vice President Mike Pence would be tested.
On July 21, White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany said the president himself is tested “multiple times a day,” but Trump contradicted that hours later. He said: “I do take probably, on average, a test every two days, three days. And I don’t know of any time I’ve taken two tests in one day, but I could see that happening.”
On Aug. 3, Politico reported that executive branch employees were told they would be subject to random testing. A White House spokesperson told Politico: “As part of our ongoing efforts to protect the health and safety of the entire White House Complex, randomized testing of Executive Office of the President staff, which has been ongoing for several months, will become mandatory rather than voluntary.”
More Articles
- GAO Report On Air Travel and Communicable Diseases: Federal Leadership Needed to Advance Research
- Why Some Cities Lost Population in 2021: One Specific Group — Younger Adults in Their Early 20s to Mid-30s
- A Reminder From the White House: Prepare for New Variants As We Work to Keep Ourselves Protected Against COVID-19
- Justice Department Secures Agreement with CVS Pharmacy, Inc. to Make Online COVID-19 Vaccine Registration Accessible for People with Disabilities
- GAO* Report, Cybersecurity: National Institutes of Health Needs to Take Further Actions to Resolve Control Deficiencies and Improve Its Program
- Journalist's Resource: Religious Exemptions and Required Vaccines; Examining the Research
- Testimony of Secretary of the Treasury Janet L. Yellen before the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs: "The debt ceiling has been raised or suspended 78 times since 1960"
- Jo Freeman's Review of "Frankly, We Did Win This Election" By Michael C. Bender
- Researchers From Yale University, Stanford Medical School, University of California, Berkeley: Largest Study of Its Kind Finds Face Masks Reduce COVID-19
- The White House Says Boosters for All: Here’s What You Need to Know: “Stick to the advice from the CDC and the FDA, because they are doing their very best to ensure maximum protection and safety”
