The President's Medical Treatment

I don't even know where to begin on all the news regarding the President becoming infected with Covid last week, his subsequent hospitalization and his discharge yesterday.  I am not interested in the political spin as there are many, many places you can go read on the web for that.  What interests me the most right now is that the President was able to return to the White House yesterday afternoon.  Now the cynical response is that Mr. Trump is in the political fight of his life and with the election looming felt he had no choice but to at least be back at the White House.  Whether you like the President or not, it's hard for me to believe any sitting President this close to what is still considered by many to be a closely fought affair would not make the same decision he did.  Americans like their presidents to be healthy and Mr. Trump wouldn't be the first one to prioritize politics over their own personal wellbeing.  Besides he will still be receiving world class medical care while recuperating.   

This explanation holds water regardless of any other possibility, yet we also need to be open to the probability that whatever therapeutic treatment being supplied to the President was at a minimum able to alleviate his symptoms so he could fight the disease or was possibly able to reduce the viral load to the point his own immune system could win the battle.   While the information has been spotty, it seems Mr. Trump was admitted to Walter Reed Hospital with at least moderate to more advanced symptoms of Covid and that he was given oxygen therapy at least once, possibly twice.  We have also been told the following about his treatment.  That he was given remdesivir, an antiviral drug that's been show to help certain hospitalized Covid patients.  That he was also given on Friday an experimental cocktail of drugs developed by the biotech company Regeneron*.   Finally, on Saturday he was given the drug dexamethasone which tries to prevent an immune system overreaction in some Covid patients.  

I don't want to get to far into the weeds on the President's medical treatment.  It's possible his condition was deteriorating rapidly and his doctor's threw the equivalent of the medical kitchen sink at him.  However, we also need to be open to the potential that what we're seeing is the beginning of the development of a better series of therapeutic treatments that will ultimately trickle down into the general population.  Remember therapeutics are part of what we're going to need in order to win the war against this virus.  Let's be open to the possibility that we're starting to get a better handle on that and perhaps the President is proof.  We'll know in regards to him at least over the next few weeks.

*Regeneron is a holding in certain ETFs we hold in client and personal accounts.