Report: Trump was very sick with coronavirus, almost needed ventilator

The New York Times reported that when the president was infected with the coronavirus last year, he was much sicker than officials admitted publicly.

By Paul Shindman, World Israel News

Former President Donald Trump was much sicker with coronavirus than officials admitted publicly and at one point doctors thought he would have to be put on a ventilator, the New York Times reported Thursday.

Trump announced October 2 that both he and First Lady Melania Trump had tested positive for Covid-19, and shortly afterwards the president was taken to Walter Reed Medical Center for treatment. At the hospital, he was found to have “extremely depressed blood oxygen levels at one point and a lung problem associated with pneumonia caused by the coronavirus,” the Times reported, citing “four people familiar with his condition.”

Before his arrival at the hospital, Trump was having serious respiratory problems. It was feared he would need to be put on a ventilator due to lung problems associated with an acute case of coronavirus infection.

At one point, the report said, the president’s blood oxygen level dropped into the 80s, contradicting Trump’s personal physician, Dr. Sean Conley, who told reporters that his oxygen level had never dropped that far. Readings in the 80s are considered to be a severe case.

“The new revelations about Mr. Trump’s struggle with the virus also underscore the limited and sometimes misleading nature of the information disclosed at the time about his condition,” the report said of Trump, who was 74 years old and overweight at the time he got sick.

At Walter Reed, Trump received “an aggressive course of treatments,” including the new antiviral drug remdesivir, an antibody cocktail by the company Regeneron that had not yet been approved by the FDA, and the steroid dexamethasone, which the report said is usually recommended only for patients in serious condition with coronavirus.

Following the intensive treatment, Trump was discharged after only three days in the hospital, but needed several more days to fully recover.