- Trump developed dangerously low levels of oxygen and inflamed lungs while battling COVID-19 last fall, according to The Times.
- These reported symptoms are significantly more severe than those that the White House previously revealed.
- Authorities believe Trump will have to be put on a respirator before being hospitalized, two sources told The Times.
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Former President Donald Trump suffered from dangerously low levels of oxygen and inflamed lungs while he was infected with COVID-19 last fall, the New York Times reported on Thursday.
Trump developed pulmonary infiltrates, which may include bacteria or fluid in the lungs. His blood oxygen level has also dropped to the 80s, while the CDC says normal oxygen saturation is between 95 and 100%.
The White House, however, never revealed that Trump exhibited these symptoms, indicating that he suffered from a much more serious case of COVID-19 than was previously known. Two sources told the Times that officials believed Trump would have to be placed on a ventilator before being hospitalized on October 2.
Still, the president would have resisted being taken to the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for treatment. He was only persuaded to admit himself after members of his team warned him that he might have to be removed from the White House by the Secret Service if he waited until he couldn’t breathe enough to walk.
So Trump agreed to be taken to the hospital, where he spent three days. During that time, his doctor, Sean Conley, played down his illness for the media and the public. The then president received several strong medications, including experimental therapies generally reserved for patients suffering from severe cases of COVID-19.
At the time of Trump’s hospitalization, Conley said the president’s oxygen level had dropped to 93% – a claim now contested by the new Times report. And Trump reportedly was furious when his then chief of staff, Mark Meadows, tried to inform reporters in particular that Trump’s COVID-19 case was serious.
Last fall, doctors told Insider that the treatments Trump received were for patients who are much sicker than the Trump team said he was.
“If the president is sicker than the press conference shows, then his treatment may be reasonable,” Dr. Patrick Jackson, an infectious disease specialist at the University of Virginia, told Insider in October. “If the president is doing as well as the press conferences describe, his treatment is very aggressive.”
After receiving some of the highest quality medical care in the world, Trump told the public not to be “afraid” of COVID-19, which killed about 209,000 Americans at that time.
“Don’t be afraid of Covid. Don’t let it dominate your life,” he said. “We developed, under the Trump administration, some really excellent drugs and knowledge. I feel better than I did 20 years ago!”
On Thursday, more than 27 million Americans were infected and more than 474,000 people died of COVID-19 as the virus and new variants continue their devastating march across the country, according to data collected by Johns Hopkins University.