Donald Trump's White House doctor, Dr. Sean Conley, vouched for Trump's infectious well-being in another press release today. As usual, the contents are a bit ... sketchy. Really sketchy, as a host of alarmed doctors pointed out on the news networks and on Twitter.
"The President this morning says ‘I feel great!’ His physical exam and vital signs, including oxygen saturation and respiratory rate, all remain stable and in normal range. He's now been fever-free for more than 4 days, symptom-free for over 24 hours, and is not needed or received any supplemental oxygen since initial hospitalization. Of note today, the President's labs demonstrated detectable levels of SARS-CoV-2 IgG antibodies from labs drawn Monday, October 5th; initial IgG levels drawn late last Thursday night were undetectable. We'll continue to closely monitor, and I will update you as I know more."
There are (ahem) several problems here. First, the mood-altering steroid Trump is taking that Conley has refused to disclose information about is an efficient fever suppressor, so it's not necessarily noteworthy that Trump is "fever-free." His oxygen saturation levels being "in normal range" tells us that he is stable, but not that he is recovered: If his oxygen levels were again falling low enough to require supplemental oxygen, he would immediately have been spirited back to Walter Reed because it would show the tripled-up treatment plan used for Trump was on the verge of failure.
But most weirdly, the antibodies detected on Monday that weren't there on Thursday? Trump was injected with IgG antibodies as part of his treatment. It would be far more alarming if Conley had pumped Trump full of Regeneron's monoclonal antibody therapy and could not find antibodies in tests performed afterwards.
So what we know from Conley’s new press release is that Trump is currently Not Dead, basically ambulatory, and (by omission) still ragingly contagious as he wanders around the virus-riddled White House. We can't take much of anything from the patient's self-declared claims of awesomitude given the mood-altering effects of dexamethasone, and his puffing, huffing performance on returning from the White House seems to indicate that he was still suffering from viral pneumonia—another data point Conley has absolutely insisted on telling the public absolutely nothing about, even as he freely shared details of Trump's other medical tests.
Yeah. Sketchy. Around the internets, real doctors are calling bullpoop on these latest declarations, and you can't really blame them. And yet again, the White House is refusing to say whether they knew Trump was infected before Trump showed up to debate Joe Biden. Not dodging around the question, but refusing to answer it outright.
Nope, he’s not kidding. The White House is continuing to release highly selective data attempting to prove Trump is out of danger when we know, from 210,000 data points and counting, that is not how this disease works. And they’re still hiding when Trump was first known to be infected, as all other evidence suggests it was before the Trump-Biden debate, not afterwards.