Former President Donald Trump reportedly came close to death during his battle with COVID-19, last October, according to a new book written by Washington Post reporters Damian Paletta and Yasmeen Abutaleb. Nightmare Scenario: Inside the Trump Administration’s Response to the Pandemic That Changed History analyzes the COVID-19 pandemic inside the Trump White House during 2020.
“Hours after his tweet announcing he and first lady Melania Trump had coronavirus infections, the president began a rapid spiral downward,” an excerpt published in the Washington Post reads. “His fever spiked, and his blood oxygen level fell below 94 percent, at one point dipping into the 80s. Sean Conley, the White House physician, attended the president at his bedside. Trump was given oxygen to stabilize him.”
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Paletta and Abutaleb write that “doctors gave Trump an eight-gram dose of two monoclonal antibodies through an intravenous tube. That experimental treatment was what had required the FDA’s sign-off. He was also given a first dose of the antiviral drug remdesivir, also by IV. That drug was authorized for use but still hard to get for many patients because it was in short supply.”
Trump was taken to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, where some of his aides reportedly feared he wouldn’t return from alive.
The book’s authors report that “at least two of those who were briefed on Trump’s medical condition that weekend said he was gravely ill and feared that he wouldn’t make it out of Walter Reed.”
[Via]