The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that infected patients isolate for at least 10 days if they had mild or moderate illness, and for up to 20 days if they had severe symptoms. The steroid Mr. Trump received, dexamethasone, can also prolong the duration of infectiousness.
But without information about Mr. Trumps oxygen levels or scans of his lungs, its impossible to know how severe his illness has been, doctors said. Based only on the information available, it sounds like ultimately, he had mild to moderate disease, Dr. Walensky said.
After a hospitalization of four days, Mr. Trump has recuperated mostly at the White House, but he has appeared at several public events, including a rally on Tuesday in Johnstown, Pa.
The chief White House physician, Dr. Sean P. Conley, has sometimes provided cryptic reports on the presidents recovery. On Monday, for example, Dr. Conley said that Mr. Trump had tested negative multiple times on the Abbott BinaxNOW test, which is not intended to confirm the absence of the virus. The doctor also alluded to other results not provided by any commercial test.
But on Tuesday, at the insistence of NBC News, the White House provided Mr. Trumps result from a P.C.R. test the gold standard lab diagnostic for the coronavirus to Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the countrys top infectious disease expert, and Dr. Clifford Lane, a clinical director at the National Institutes of Health.read more
Could Trump Still Spread the Coronavirus? Probably Not, Experts Say
