President Trump's physical health with covid 19 aside, how about his mental health since he's at this time taking a steroid. One of the side effects is mood swings.
A volatile personality without meds and now he's on a med that causes mood swings.
It's the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dexamethasone treatment that causes the concerns about the mood swings. Common side-effects may include [long list] ... euphoria, amnesia, irritability, and confusion. No idea about the quality or quantity of such side-effects in this case or in general. I'm not a medical doctor.
A small amount of reporting on some but not very many left-leaning media sources (none of the right) and foreign sources that Don Jr. wanted to stage an intervention after the excursion outside the hospital and the 6ish hours of ALL CAPS tweeting that included some highly pro-ACA statements. And definitely a lot of reporting from journalists reading the list of side-effects and drawing their own conclusions.
In conclusion, only a few people know what's really going on outside the inner circle, but after four years we should be used to that. I think the worst we can except is that a few random tweets cause a 500 point drop (or rise) in the DJIA such as the one we saw yesterday. Insofar Pence is in control, it's definitely not formally. There has been no invocation of 25A as of yet.
a few random tweets cause a 500 point drop (or rise) in the DJIA such as the one we saw yesterday.
thinking about causality real vs attributed, bloomberg yesterday was saying drop was due to mnuchin ceasing negotiations with pelosi re: further stimulus, in spite of powell’s warnings.
not arguing that this or that was the cause really. i’m more interested in noticing instances of the attribution bias—i’m trying to do some practical homework post-kahneman/post-taleb and the world looks suddenly very.... unstable, ha ha ha.
Certainly ... there's this story about baseball umpires explaining how they make their calls.
The first one says: "I call them as I see them"
The second one says: "I call them as they are"
The third one says: "They ain't nothing until I call them"
The market is like the third umpire in the short run and the second one in the long run, but the commentators (including this one) are more like the first one.
@Dave
As a severe asthmatic I have been prescribed dexa several times in my life and it absolutely changes your body/mind very quickly. Also docs have always been hesitant to prescribe it...it's been given to me as a last course before hospitalization. Anecdotal I know.
I think it's pretty much impossible to know what's going on right now. Note that sometimes COVID-19 can have cognitive symptoms as well. Also note that they said nothing with Borris Johnson or even Herman Cain until they had to. And with presidents like FDR, they always made sure that he was never shown in a wheelchair. I don't think we'll really know what's happening until Trump's illness is over in either direction.
Regardless, I do find it interesting that they gave him the antibody cocktail (immune enhancing) then a steroid (immune dampening). And the press conferences on his health were honestly pretty bizarre too. I have no idea what's going on.
@Dave
As a severe asthmatic I have been prescribed dexa several times in my life and it absolutely changes your body/mind very quickly. Also docs have always been hesitant to prescribe it...it's been given to me as a last course before hospitalization. Anecdotal I know.
Thanks, as a fellow asthmatic and all-around "hayfever" sufferer I've been prescribed steroids several times in different forms, but I don't think that one (none ever had any sort of physiological or other effect). I abandoned them all quickly because zero efficacy (the nasal ones just gummed me up worse).
I heard a doc on the radio this morning saying she prescribes "dexa" frequently (including for covid) and has little concern about side effects. Makes me nervous anytime a doctor wants me to start taking new drugs. Maybe dosages for some conditions are higher than others? Last resort asthma treatments usually are not subtle.
I think it's pretty much impossible to know what's going on right now. Note that sometimes COVID-19 can have cognitive symptoms as well. Also note that they said nothing with Borris Johnson or even Herman Cain until they had to. And with presidents like FDR, they always made sure that he was never shown in a wheelchair. I don't think we'll really know what's happening until Trump's illness is over in either direction.
Yep, have HIPAA and National Security working against us all playing armchair physician. What my intuition points to as the risk is jumping back into his usual 16-18 hr workdays with insufficient convalescence, maybe aided by being hopped up on this medication if that's the case.. Resurgence after apparent recovery with this virus seems to happen.
I too have taken oral steroids for severe asthma. They definitely have a psychological/physiological effect on me. They make me feel very powerful. Like Day Zero my lungs hurt so bad I can barely carry my little backpack up a flight of stairs, even after using my inhaler, so I break down and go get a prescription, and then Day 2 on oral steroids I am out first thing in the morning digging a new 20 ft garden bed.
I saw clip where Trump was saying he felt better than he had in years. That’s the steroids talking.
If you don't touch public door handles, elevator buttons and so on, and especially if you don't touch your own face or get too close to other people, it's quite hard to catch a virus that's transmitted by water droplets. If you're super careful then your biggest risk comes from the actions of other less careful people in your household.
Trump is known to be a germophobe, and maybe he doesn't get too close to his wife either That would rule out the main risk factors and would mean his infection most likely came with a small viral load, and scientists believe this is a key factor which determines the severity of Covid-19. That would go a long way to explaining why he hasn't got more sick.
The weird thing about giving him dex is that it's only given in severe or critical COVID cases. (Severe or critical being defined by the need for supplemental O2) His doctors did mention he was on supplemental O2 at least twice. I'd wager it's less so that he has it mildly and more that they need to project "BAU" for the president.
The video where we walked up the White House stairs and took his mask off made it look like he was gasping for air or having pain when he breathed. He probably does have viral pneumonia, ergo the dex, ergo the severe COVID.
I honestly have no idea what's really going on, but I'm sure we don't have the full truth here, and they have every incentive to make him look less sick than he might be. I'm honestly shocked they even said anything about the dex or needing O2.
I'm a Pharmacist and I work at a large hospital that has seen a large number of coronavirus patients.
Dexamethasone-Ya, possibly causes euphoria and mood swings but as with all side effects it doesn't effect everyone the same and dose matters. The Dose for covid is 6 mg daily. For reference, the dose usually given for asthma is 16 mg daily and 6 mg is the same dose we'd give to a 10kg child with croup (0.6mg/kg dose). I've had to use dexamethasone and other steroids for spinal injury and had no mood altering side effects whatsoever.
Current recommendation for COVID treatment is if patient is on supplemental O2, but we also use steroids for patients with other respiratory tract infections; so POTUS getting it is not surprising at all.
It's just the biased media trying to scare people. Nobody was ringing the alarm bells when Obama was taking modafinil and that is a drug that works similarly to cocaine (they both stop the re-up take of dopamine).
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That would rule out the main risk factors and would mean his infection most likely came with a small viral load, and scientists believe this is a key factor which determines the severity of Covid-19. That would go a long way to explaining why he hasn't got more sick.
