Use of Dexamethasone to Treat Trump Suggests Severe Covid-19, Experts Say

Using multiple drugs at once could have an impact on their effectiveness, and it increases the risk of harmful drug interactions, said Dr. McGinn.

“You’re giving remdesivir, you’re giving dexamethasone, and you’re giving monoclonal antibodies,” he said, referring to the experimental treatment by Regeneron. “No one’s ever done that, not to mention famotidine and some zinc and a mix of cocktails, or whatever else he’s on.”

Uncertainty over the president’s condition stemmed at least in part from earlier mixed signals from the president’s physicians. On Sunday, the team acknowledged delivering an overly positive description of the president’s illness on Saturday.

“I didn’t want to give any information that might steer the course of illness in another direction, and in doing so, you know, it came off that we were trying to hide something, which wasn’t necessarily true,” Dr. Sean P. Conley, the White House physician, said to reporters on Sunday.

Dr. Rajesh Gandhi, an infectious diseases physician at Massachusetts General Hospital and a member of the panel that developed Covid-19 treatment guidelines for the N.I.H, said, “What would be very helpful to know is how much oxygen did the president need and for how long.”

The president’s physicians also have not described in detail the results of imaging scans of Mr. Trump’s lungs, or of blood tests indicating whether he is at risk for blood clots, a common complication in Covid-19 disease.

Mr. Trump is moderately obese, a condition that is usually accompanied by at least mild or moderate hypertension and mild to moderate diabetes, Dr. McGinn noted. The president’s high blood pressure is said to be under control, and he is not known to have Type 2 diabetes. Still, studies have identified the conditions as critical predictors of severe Covid-19 disease.