By Nikhila Natarajan
New York, Oct 3 (IANS): "Nightmare" is how leading US doctors and frontline workers are describing the contact tracing scenario to pin down the chain of infection that led to President Donald Trump's Covid-19 diagnosis.
Information from the White House remains sketchy. That's par for course, according to presidential historian Jon Meacham.
The White House said Trump remains "fatigued" and has been injected with an experimental antibody drug combination.
"In no case have I heard of anybody with mild symptoms getting an early stage therapeutic. Why is he getting it? This smells dangerous," Dr. Vin Gupta, lung and intensive care doctor at the University of Washington, told NBC.
Dr. Ashish Jha, the new dean of Brown University's School of Public Health, called Trump's infection "a total failure by the White House to protect the President."
Potentially harsher symptoms of the coronavirus are still a few days away for Donald Trump, according to Jha.
Doctors, hospitals, frontline workers, personal protective equipment and masks - all things medical that are at the heart of the coronavirus response across the world - are now suddenly at the core of US president Donald Trump's own coronavirus treatment and recovery.
Remarkable visuals filled television and digital screens Friday evening in the US as the White House chopper lifted off for a short flight to transport Trump to Walter Reed Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland.
White House officials say Trump will remain there for a "few days".
Dr Leana Wen, former Baltimore City Health Commissioner, says it could be weeks before we know Trump's disease trajectory. "Mean time between symptoms onset and ICU is 10-12 daysa, according to her assessment.
The news cycle is swiftly moving towards the next Trumpian possibility.
"A negative test isn't enough to break quarantine; it's possible that it's still too early in the illness to pick up the virus", Wen said, without mentioning the president by name.
After news broke that Trump's confidante Hope Hicks is symptomatic, worries spiralled among the medical community.
"I am deeply concerned for the president's welfare and his inner circle's welfare, those that they've exposed, because of the finding that Hope Hicks is symptomatic," Vin Gupta said.
"Quarantine 10-14 days regardless of what a COVID test shows. That is what our CDC recommends", he advised, referring to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines.
"This should apply to all, no matter your title."
The first presidential debate night earlier this week had 80 people within an enclosed space, many of them without masks.
Hope Hicks, a Trump confidante, was part of Trump's entourage and part of the room. Doctors have already said that everyone in that space with Trump or Hicks during their contagious period are at risk.
Reacting to the Trump Covid case bombshell, Dr. Megan Ranney replied to a Trump tweet: "There is a reason the rest of us wear masks and physically distance whenever possible. This was both unnecessary and preventable - like so much of this pandemic."