On Trump's condition [View all]

[EarlG]

For all the talk about Trump's condition, here's something to bear in mind: all the reports you're hearing about him could pretty much all be true at the same time.

Today we've heard from Trump's doctor's that he's fine, just fine, except they didn't want to tell us what his temperature was or whether he was on oxygen. Then we heard from anonymous sources (Mark Meadows) that Trump's condition is serious and people are very concerned for his health. The we saw a video of Trump talking about how great he was feeling. Then we find out that he really did suffer a drop in oxygen levels and was on supplemental O2.

My thought is that none of this is necessarily inconsistent. There's still a lot we don't know about COVID, but quite a lot we do know. For example we know that the time from infection to symptoms is roughly 2-14 days -- Trump and everyone else is right in this zone if they all got it at the same event last week. We know that a fever is one of the first symptoms -- Trump had a fever. We know that a drop in oxygen levels is a sign that the condition could become serious. We also know that it's not uncommon for patients to go through cycles of feeling okay and then feeling worse. In a lot of cases, patients started with a fever, then started feeling better, then got significantly worse.

This is not to say that Trump is going to get better or worse. The point is we don't know, but there's a reason that I'm sure Trump's doctors are feeling worried, and that's because they also just don't know where this is going to go. There's absolutely no reason why Trump couldn't have felt well enough to make that video today. There's also absolutely no reason why he might not be on a ventilator tomorrow.

The next 48 hours really will be critical, and we'll know in a few days what is likely to happen to him. Either way, speculating about it at this juncture is probably not going to get us anywhere. To quote the world's biggest asshole, "It is what it is." And pretty soon we're going to find out what "it" is.

(Of course, none of this changes the fact that THEY ALL DEFINITELY KNEW HE HAD COVID AND SENT HIM OUT TO DO FUNDRAISERS ANYWAY WITHOUT TELLING ANYBODY -- and whether he recovers or not, that's just despicable.)

Edited to add: I wrote 48 hours above, but many reports on COVID have indicated that 10 days or so after the onset of symptoms is the real danger zone. At that point you either get better or get much worse. So if Trump first started exhibiting symptoms last Wednesday, we probably won't know if he's out of the woods or not until at least next weekend.