Former President Donald Trump was more seriously sick from the coronavirus in October than the public was told at the time, a new report said.
Trump, after contracting Covid-19, had “extremely depressed blood oxygen levels at one point and a lung problem associated with pneumonia caused by the coronavirus,” The New York Times reported, citing four people familiar with his condition.
His condition was so poor, the Times said, that “officials believed he would be put on a ventilator” before he was taken from the White House to Walter Reed National Military Center.
According to the newspaper, a person close to the ex-president denied that he had been gravely ill, echoing comments Trump made after he was sick.
The Times noted that when Trump went to the hospital in early October — a month before the presidential election — his medical team tried to downplay the severity of his condition in comments to the public.
Trump left the hospital after three days after receiving experimental treatments.
He had participated in an in-person debate with then-Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden just two days before disclosing he had Covid.
Biden handily won the election, which was held after Trump downplayed the severity of the coronavirus pandemic for months.
Read the full New York Times story here.