The White House doctor is telling reporters two things simultaneously:
- The Resident is doing very well, he has mild and improving symptoms, and he might leave the hospital today.
- He is being given dexamethasone.
Either one of these is not true, or all of the doctors at Walter Reed medical center are incompetent. dexamethasone is not used to control or combat the viral infection. It is in fact an immunosuppresant that makes people more susceptible to viral infections. The reason it is sometimes used to treat people with Covid-19 is that they have very severe disease which is causing an immunological over-reaction, called a "cytokine storm," which can lead to acute respiratory distress and multiple organ damage. Cytokines are cellular signaling molecules that promote inflammation, which is a response to infection but if it becomes excessive can become dangerous. To quote a rather technical article which you probably don't want to read:
Cytokine storm (CS) is a critical life-threatening condition requiring intensive care admission and having a quite high mortality. CS is characterized by a clinical presentation of overwhelming systemic inflammation, hyperferritinemia, hemodynamic instability, and multi-organ failure, and if left untreated, it leads to death. The trigger for CS is an uncontrolled immune response resulting in continuous activation and expansion of immune cells, lymphocytes, and macrophages, which produce immense amounts of cytokines, resulting in a cytokine storm. The CS clinical findings are attributed to the action of the proinflammatory cytokines like IL-1, IL-6, IL-18, IFN-γ, and TNF-α (27).
Unless that is happening, there is no reason to give a Covid-19 patient dexamethasone. In fact it would be harmful, not beneficial. Make of it what you will.