White House Physician Clears President to Start Public Activities on Saturday Just Hours After Trump Brags: ‘I’m a Perfect Physical Specimen’
Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images.
President Donald Trump tested positive for the coronavirus last Thursday and was hospitalized on Friday, temporarily requiring supplemental oxygen and receiving a high dose of an experimental antibody cocktail and the steroid dexamethasone, but his doctor now expects that he will be able to resume public events as early as Saturday — 10 days after he was first diagnosed.
Dr. Sean Conley, the Navy doctor who is the president’s personal physician, issued a letter Thursday evening, stating that [Trump] had “completed his course of therapy for COVID-19 as prescribed by his team of physicians,” along with a short report of Trump’s vital signs.
“Overall, he’s responded well to treatment,” Conley’s letter continued on Trump, noting an absence of “adverse therapeutic effects.”
“Saturday will be day 10 since Thursday’s diagnosis,” he concluded, “and based on the trajectory of advanced diagnostics the team has been conducting, I fully anticipate the President’s safe return to public engagements at that time.”
BREAKING: Dr. Conley says he “fully expects” Trump to return to public events on Saturday, 10 days post-diagnosis.
CDC guidance says if you’ve been fever-free & symptoms are improving you can end isolation 10 days from 1st symptoms, but also advises 2 negative tests 24 hrs apart pic.twitter.com/zhZpOZotef
— Sara Cook (@saraecook) October 8, 2020
Earlier in the day Thursday, Trump had called into Maria Bartiromo‘s Fox Business program, making a number of eyebrow raising statements about his “amazing” recovery.
“I’m back because I’m a perfect physical specimen and I’m extremely young,” said the 74-year-old Trump, who is overweight and takes a statin for high cholesterol. “So I am lucky in that way.”
The president also claimed that he thought he would have been fine without any treatment.
“I think I would have done it fine without drugs,” he said. “You know, you don’t really need drugs.”
Regardless of the president’s claims that he is “extremely young” and a “perfect physical specimen,” 10 days is the CDC’s minimum time limit that a patient who tests positive for the coronavirus should be isolated.
Among the recommended checklist items before a patient is cleared to resume public activities are being fever-free and repeated negative tests over 24 hours. So far, the White House has not confirmed a negative test for the president, nor clarified the date of his last negative test before he tested positive.
