With Trump hospitalized for COVID-19, experimental therapeutics show some promise
While there is currently no cure for COVID-19, Dr. Uché Blackstock, a Yahoo News medical contributor and CEO of Advancing Health Equity, says there are therapeutics that President Trump's medical team could try if his condition worsens.
Video Transcript
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UCHE BLACKSTOCK: We found out early Friday morning that the president has tested positive for coronavirus, which means likely he was infected anywhere from three to five days ago. His progress will really need to be closely monitored as it could potentially deteriorate over the next few days.
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They'll be checking his temperature. They'll be checking his heart rate. They'll be checking his lungs, listening to see if he may have signs of pneumonia. And then also the most critical vital sign is his oxygen saturation, which measures the amount of oxygen in the blood. We know that there is no cure at the-- at the current moment, but we do have some therapeutics that may be helpful for him. And this is only if his condition gets worse.
So remdesivir is a medication that underwent emergency use authorization, and it was shown to decrease hospitalization time in people who were admitted to the hospital with COVID-19. Another potential medication is dexamethasone. It's a steroid that's been shown to decrease mortality rates in people who require supplemental oxygen or have to be placed on a mechanical ventilator to be helped with their breathing.
And we also know about convalescent plasma, which the evidence is still out. It's not convincing evidence for its use, but that may be something that the president's staff considers. And then there are other experimental medications out there like monoclonal antibodies and-- and other immunomodulators that are currently being studied that he may have access to because he's the president.
Based on the-- the data that we have so far for hydroxychloroquine, that would be quite unwise for his doctors to give him that medication. We know that it has very serious side effects, and the data is not convincing in support of taking that medication for COVID-19. I also think there should be transparency in terms of what is being communicated to the American public given that he is our leader-in-chief.
It will be important know how he's doing in terms of signs and symptoms. It'll be important to know what medication he's receiving. The president has a mix of factors that may cause him to do poorly. He is over the age of 70, he's male, he's overweight. We also don't know whether or not he has other chronic underlying medical problems like diabetes, high blood pressure, asthma. So we'll have to really keep track of his progress over the next few days.
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