WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump's condition is improving as he is being treated for COVID-19 at a military hospital, his medical team said on Sunday, as they provided more details of the toll the lung illness has taken on him.
Trump, 74, who was flown to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on Friday, could return as early as Monday to the White House, where doctors would continue his five-day course of the intravenous antiviral drug Remdesivir.
Dr. Sean P. Conley told reporters Trump had received supplemental oxygen on Thursday and Friday and is also being given the steroid dexamethasone. The briefing came the day after contradictory messages from the White House caused widespread confusion about the president's condition.
Trump spent much of the year downplaying the risks of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has infected 7.4 million Americans, killed more than 209,000, and caused an economic downturn that has thrown millions out of work.
His illness has upended his re-election campaign as it seeks to fend off Democratic challenger Joe Biden in the final month of the race, and rattled financial markets. Several members of his inner circle have also tested positive for the disease, including three Republican members of the U.S. Senate.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll published on Sunday found Biden had opened a 10 point lead over Trump nationally, slightly wider than it has been for the past two months. Some 65% of Americans said Trump likely would not have been infected had he taken the virus more seriously -- a view that half of registered Republicans polled supported. Some 55% said they did not believe Trump had been telling the truth about the virus.
Doctors said the president has not run a fever since Friday, though he had a high fever on Friday morning, and that his liver and kidney function remained normal after the second dose of Remdesivir.
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