President Trump could be discharged from Walter Reed Medical Center later today, but some prominent physicians say given the treatments he received over the weekend, that could be a big mistake.
"It's a lot too soon," said UCSF Chair of the Department of Medicine Dr. Bob Wachter. "He's still at pretty high risk. You have to do a little bit to try to figure out what's going on, from evasions to misdirection's that we're getting from the press briefings, but it looks like he's at least got a moderately severe case of COVID-19... The truth will come out over the next three to five days or so, so staying at home (Monday) would be massively premature."
"I'm very worried about President Trump," said Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, infectious disease expert at UCSF. "If he were my patient I'd be totally on guard."
Neither Dr. Wachter nor Dr. Chin-Hong are involved in the president's treatment.
The president is older and overweight, which puts him at a high risk of developing a severe case of COVID-19.
"It's not only totally how he looks right now - which is really not like a spring chicken to tell you the truth - but how he may look in seven days," explained Dr. Chin-Hong. "We've sent some patients home looking okay, peachy. And then after seven days they always tend to require a lot of oxygen, have to come back to the hospital, go straight into the intensive care unit."
Of course, the President has access to far more medical resources at the White House than a regular patient would have at home.
But both doctors agree that it would be highly unusual to send a patient home who has received the treatments that Mr. Trump has received.
"Nobody goes on home on an antiviral. Nobody goes home after a day or two getting antibodies plus remdesivir plus steroids. It's just not something we would do," said Dr. Chin-Hong.
There have been some contradictory reports on the president's health and symptoms from his physicians and staff since before he entered the hospital.
But based on the information that has been released, Dr. Wachter said, "I think most physicians would put that together and say that he has COVID in his lungs, his lungs are infected and inflamed and that's part of what makes us worry that this is a serious case that could go sour."
WH Chief of Staff Mark Meadows told Fox News that the president is eager to get back to work and a decision will be made after an evaluation by his medical team on Monday.
