Donald Trump doesn’t drink alcohol – however, he doesn’t seem to have any problem experimenting with drugs. Over the past few days, Trump appears to have been ingesting whatever he can get his tiny hands on, including dexamethasone, remdesivir, zinc, vitamin D, famotidine, melatonin, aspirin and REGN-COV2, according to the president’s physician and medical team. The antiviral remdesivir hasn’t proved to be effective in treating Covid-19, while REGN-COV2, an experimental antibody cocktail, has been tested on only a handful of people. Dexamethasone, meanwhile, is a steroid that has been shown to be effective in severely ill patients, but is potentially risky for those with milder cases.
Ever since he tested positive for Covid-19, Trump has insisted he is doing brilliantly. On Monday, shortly before he left Walter Reed medical centre to return to the White House, he tweeted that he was “feeling really good! … better than I did 20 years ago!” How, a lot of people have asked, does one square Trump’s cheery statements with the serious drugs he is supposedly taking?
One theory is VIP syndrome: a phenomenon in which prominent people receive different medical care because doctors are either overzealous in treating them or defer to inadvisable demands. Some experts have suggested Trump isn’t seriously ill, but has been insisting on unnecessary treatment. On the other hand, of course, it is also possible that he is very sick, but has bullied doctors into releasing him from hospital.
VIPs can be demanding. Michael Jackson, for example, died because of a fatal cocktail of drugs in his system; his doctor, who was convicted of involuntary manslaughter, had been giving him a surgical anaesthetic because the insomniac singer was convinced it was the only way that he would be able to sleep. The thing about Trump, however, is that he must have the constitution of an ox. How else do you explain the fact that he has reached the age of 74 while avoiding exercise (because he believes the body is like a battery and working out depletes it) and subsisting on junk food and gallons of Diet Coke?
But while Trump may not succumb to VIP syndrome himself, there will be plenty of collateral damage. The moment Trump arrived home, he took off his mask and proceeded to breathe infected air everywhere. White House sources told ABC News on Monday that there is “a full-blown freak-out” in the administration as aides wait to see who will be next to test positive. Apparently, some are trying not to come into work. Can you blame them? At least 13 people in Trump’s circle have tested positive for Covid-19; that is more than four times the number of active coronavirus cases in New Zealand. Even Donald Trump Jr seems to be nervous. According to Vanity Fair, Don Jr has been urging his siblings to stage an intervention because his dad is “acting crazy”. Which could be a side-effect of all the drugs Trump is taking.
So there you go. Nobody seems to have any idea how sick the president of the US actually is. However, we do know that the man is jacked up on steroids and within coughing distance of the nuclear football. The scriptwriters behind 2020 have pulled out all the stops so far. Let’s hope they don’t end this season of The Earth with a big dexamethasone-induced bang.
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