Trump Received 2nd Dose of Remdesivir

In a Saturday night update, White House physician Sean Conley said that President Trump had that day received his second dose of remdesivir "without complications" following his initial dose on Friday, reports the Hill. Conley added that Trump has no fever and remains "off supplemental oxygen with a saturation level between 96 and 98% all day." NBC News dives into the experimental antiviral, which Trump will receive via IV for five days. It reports that the drug works to lower the levels of coronavirus in the body, and has been shown in clinical trials to shorten patients' hospital stays from a median of 15 days to 11.

Dr. Irwin Redlener of Columbia University's National Center for Disaster Preparedness sums it up like so: "It's not really a treatment in the sense that it'll cure people. It will just hopefully reduce the fatality rate and reduce the course of the illness." Trump is also being given an antibody cocktail of two monoclonal antibodies, which in this case zero in on SARS-CoV-2 and direct the immune system to fight it off. As a doctor with Sandra Atlas Bass Heart Hospital puts it, "The remdesivir is supposed to stop viral replication, but if there is some virus that does replicate, the monoclonal antibodies would mop that up." (More President Trump stories.)