-At around 1:00 AM early Friday morning,
President Trump announced that he tested positive
for coronavirus.
There were multiple reports that were later confirmed,
that the President had at least one episode
where his oxygen saturation dropped.
That particular episode was concerning enough
that the White House physicians decided
that the President should receive closer monitoring
at Walter Reed National Medical Center.
During the first press conference on Saturday,
there were a number of questions that were asked
of the President's physician, Doctor Conley.
-He has not received any supplemental oxygen?
-He's not on oxygen right now. That's right.
-He has not received any at all?
-He's not needed any this morning, today at all.
That's right.
-Has he ever been on supplemental oxygen?
-Right now, he is not on oxygen.
-I understand. You keep saying "right now,"
but should we read into the fact that he had been previously?
-Yesterday and today, he was not on oxygen.
-There were incomplete to misleading answers
that were given.
Now, many of us who are physicians
and public health experts deduced
that the President probably received supplemental oxygen
based on the fact that he was receiving remdesivir,
this antiviral medication which is given to patients
who are on supplemental oxygen.
The President received an antibody cocktail
that is not yet approved or authorized by the Food
and Drug Administration, by the FDA,
as well as dexamethasone, a steroid.
All of this is concerning because, for example,
dexamethasone actually has been shown
to be effective in patients
with severe to critical illness, and is not recommended,
not indicated in patients with non-severe illness.
That leads us to wonder
what exactly is the state of the President's health.
The President's physician, Doctor Conley,
said that President Trump's vitals were great.
Less than an hour later,
we heard from an anonymous source within the White House,
later found out to be the chief of staff, Mark Meadows,
who said that the President's vital signs
were very concerning.
And so the fact that you have these two very different
statements itself is worrisome.
There are at least three key missing pieces of information.
The first is his vital signs.
Vital signs are called "vital" for a reason.
We cannot possibly know the condition
that the President is in
without understanding not just one set of vital signs,
but his vital signs throughout the course of his illness.
The second critical component that we don't know the answer to
is what his lung imaging studies show.
COVID-19 is a respiratory disease.
It may affect many other organ systems, too,
but it begins in the airways.
It starts off in the lungs. -Have you done a screen?
Has there been any sign of any lung damage whatsoever?
-We are following all that.
We do daily ultrasounds.
We do daily lab work.
The team is tracking all of that.
-Has been there any sign of damage, though?
-I'm not gonna go into specifics of what the findings have been.
-What do the X-rays and CT scans show?
Are there signs of pneumonia?
Are there signs of lung involvement
or any damage to the lungs?
-Yes, and we're tracking all of that.
There's some expected findings,
but nothing of any major clinical concern.
That's it. Thank you, folks.
-Doctor Conley, on his lung scans --
-This is again -- You did this yesterday.
-Doctor Conley, the President's physician, when asked about --
specifically about the President's
chest X-ray and chest CT,
only said that the findings were "expected."
He did not say that they were normal.
And that leads us to believe
that if they are abnormal in some way,
that the President likely has pneumonia.
The third key question is specifically around time course.
-Doctor, what was the date
of the President's last negative test?
-I'm not gonna get into all the testing going back.
-The White House has been saying that the President
and all those in the White House get tested daily.
So if that's the case, we need to understand
when was the last negative test.
If it's true that the President had negative tests
Tuesday and Wednesday
and suddenly had a positive test on Thursday,
then he had a sudden escalation in his illness.
It's not just about the President.
It's also for contact-tracing purposes,
because there are many individuals
with whom the President interacted with.
We need to know when the President's symptoms started
because the 48 hours before symptom onset
are when people tend to be the most infectious.
On Sunday, it appears that President Trump
left the hospital
and was seen in a car wearing a cloth mask,
with Secret Service agents in that vehicle --
in a sealed vehicle without windows open.
I could not believe -- I just could not believe it.
Based on everything that we knew,
the President was in unstable medical condition.
He could be endangering his own life.
He was knowingly endangering the health
of those around him --
the Secret Service agents who were in the same vehicle,
in an enclosed space.
What I am looking for in the next press conference,
first and foremost, is the truth.
I don't want for cherry-picking of data.
Either tell us the information
or don't tell us the information,
but don't interpret it in such a way that is inaccurate
and, frankly, false.
I hope that people understand from everything that's occurred
that all of us are in danger of getting COVID-19 --
that just because you are the President of the United States
or senior leaders within government,
this virus doesn't care.
This virus is highly contagious.