Laurie Garrett: Only State-of-the-Art Medicine--and Luck--Can Save Trump Now

[brooklynite]

Foreign Policy

In November 2019, an anonymous alleged White House staffer wrote in a book titled A Warning: “I am not qualified to diagnose the president’s mental acuity. All I can tell you is that normal people who spend any time with Donald Trump are uncomfortable by what they witness. He stumbles, slurs, gets confused, is easily irritated, and has trouble synthesizing information, not occasionally but with regularity. Those who would claim otherwise are lying to themselves or to the country.”

Combined, these pieces of evidence suggest that Trump may have some of the underlying health conditions that put COVID-19 patients at risk for severe outcomes.

If current reports are accurate and the president has already displayed symptoms of fatigue and breathing difficulties, he may soon become too ill to do his job, as was the case with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. As one of my friends put it while she struggled at home with the virus, “It feels like an elephant is sitting on my chest.” In the coming days, the severity of Trump’s illness will become more apparent, including whether—like Johnson—he requires hospitalization and respiratory support.

More worrying, from the point of view of Trump’s role as commander in chief, is increasing evidence that SARS-CoV-2 can infect the brain and cause cognitive dysfunctions, including hallucinations, severe headaches, dizziness, and impaired judgment. The list of neurological symptoms connected with COVID-19 is very long, including confusion, delirium, senility, and permanent brain damage. These, and other brain-associated symptoms, may persist for months.

Laurie Garrett is a former senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations and a Pulitzer Prize winning science writer.

[Fiendish Thingy]

1. Hope she's on Rachel tonight - this is what the press should focus on

Not, as I heard on CNN, wishing the president a “speedy recovery” a dozen times in a 2-3 minute period. I get that they don’t want to come off as gleeful, but the fate of the country is at stake.

[tblue37]

3. Brooklynite says she will be on Lawrence O'Donnell tonight. nt

[empedocles]

2. State-of-the-art experimental drugs didn't save trump bud ratty roy cohn,

from his 'liver cancer'.

[Eyeball_Kid]

4. The Trump campaign is over. They don't know it yet. But it's over.

If Trumpy-Boy is even asymptomatic, he at best loses half of his remaining campaign time in quarantine. Were that the case, his very narrow path to victory becomes a tight wire. He cannot gain on Biden. He cannot reverse the public's perception that he's unalterably incompetent to handle his own personal health, no less the well being of the nation.

But he's NOT asymptomatic. He's worse. He has what can be called "moderate symptoms." At this level of infection, he can slip quickly into severe symptoms. But even at a moderate level, it will take WEEKS, maybe months, for him to recover to a fully functioning level. But there are only 30 days left until the election. He can NOT return to campaigning by then. So... as a politician, Trump may have seen his last days. At 74, he will not return to his chaotic and cruel style of governing.

Trump did NOT want to go to hospital, that's for certain. He does not want to look as if he's not in control. He must be superior at all times and in every way. The virus took care of those projections. Trump is now a weak and very sick old man. The odds of him returning to his old form by election day is very slim. By now, the realization must have hit him that he's no longer able to sit as president. As the hours and days move forward, Trump's best case scenario for recovery doesn't include massive rallies and debate juggernauts. It doesn't include holding court on Twitter. It does mean that intellectually, Trump's capabilities will probably be diminished. If his demeanor in the White House showed cognitive deficiencies before the infection, it will change by matters of degree after the infection.

In the next few days, there will be more discussion about Trump relinquishing his seat to Pence, even if his symptoms don't get worse.

This disease is NOT like the flu.

[Thekaspervote]

5. Excellent analysis!!

[bcbink]

6. caution

I think he is scared and this is just like the bunker inspection.

[Klaralven]

7. Alzheimer's Gene Linked to Higher Risk of Severe COVID-19

https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/alzheimers-gene-linked-to-higher-risk-of-severe-covid-19-67570