Is it possible that Donald Trump's contracting Covid-19 and hospitalization at Walter Reed National Medical Center is simply another con intended to divert the world's attention from last week's bombshell revelation that he's ripped off the American people by not paying his taxes?
Conspiracy theories are not a good thing, and the purpose of this blog is not to promote them. However, Trump is well known for his ability to manipulate the media and to create a new crisis to dominate the news cycles and social media and take attention away from harmful news stories.
Given the fact that so many people around him -- White House staffers, the first lady, Republican senators -- all have come down with Covid-19, that theory is probably not valid. However, there has been enough obfuscation in reporting Trump's condition, from when he was first diagnosed to whether he has lung damage, to raise questions as to what's real and what's not.
As this is written, Trump walked out of Walter Reed to Marine 1, the chopper that would take him back to the White House, the newest hot spot for the virus that has taken the lives of 211,000 people as of today. Either the special drugs he's been taking have worked wonders and he will recover without incident, or his condition will worsen and he'll have to return to the hospital, possibly in worse condition than before.
And how many people will he infect along the way? Secret Service agents, some of whom have already contracted the virus? Staffers? Who knows what others?
If Trump truly has Covid-19, he still has a few days to go before he'll be out of the woods, according to his doctors. So what was the big rush for him to return to the White House, if not for the optics of it and to prove to his followers that he's next to God? Trump suffered a deadly disease, and after three days rose from his hospital bed to go home.
“I think it would be disastrous to be in a situation where he gets really sick at the White House, and you’re having to emergency transfer him,” Dr. Céline Gounder, of N.Y.U. Grossman School of Medicine, told The New York Times. “To me, it’s not safe,” said the doctor, who has been caring for Covid-19 patients.
This afternoon, Trump's doctors said he had received a third dose of the antiviral drug remdesivir, and that he continues to take the steroid drug dexamethasone, which has been shown to help very sick Covid-19 patients. It's generally given to patients who need ventilation or oxygen.
But asked if his lungs had been damaged, Dr. Sean P. Conley, the White House physician, ducked.
"There are HIPAA rules and regulations that restrict me in sharing certain things for his safety and his own health and reasons,” Dr. Conley said, referring to the federal law that restricts what type of patient information health professionals can share.
Expert Questions Covid-19 Diagnosis
Meanwhile, a hospital pharmacist and pharmacologist familiar with the drugs Trump has been taking told me that he does not believe Trump has Covid-19 simply because of the way his treatment is being handled.
"In my experience as a hospital pharmacist for many years, I find it strange that a person receiving the three IV drugs (Regeneron’s polyclonal antibodies, Remdesevir and dexamethasone) doesn’t have a running IV in his arm and is allowed to wear a suit and not a hospital gown," he said. "I haven’t heard any reporter ask his doctor if this is the normal way for a patient to be treated."
"Based on the FDA guidance page on remdesevir, it should be infused intravenously over 30 to 120 minutes," the pharmacist explained. "This means that a patient should have a running IV for at least 30 minutes and up to 120 minutes. I guess they could have put a port in Trump so he wouldn’t need a continuous IV, but that is not the preferred way to administer an IV drug that needs to be given for five days. The dexamethasone can be given by direct IV push (quickly) but again, through an established IV line."
Certainly, these are questions that should be put to the doctors who are treating Trump.
To me, they further raise the likelihood that we are not being told the truth about the condition of the president of the United States. Can you imagine Trump allowing himself to be photographed in a hospital gown with an IV running into his arm from a big metal pole standing at his side?
Could the fact that people are now voting about Trump's future in office and he wants to take their attention away from his tax cheating and horrific handling of the pandemic have anything to do with this fiasco?
Those problems will not go away. His poll numbers continue to plummet -- 13 points behind Biden today.
Hopefully, this all will be over soon.