“U.S. President Donald Trump’s condition is improving as he is being treated for COVID-19 at a military hospital…” so the media pundits drone on.

Yet does he really have COVID-19? This ever devolving disease seems to acquire a broader and broader definition every month. Soon enough merely breathing will be a sign that you have COVID-19.

Back in December 2019, it was only people with pneumonia who were classified with this disease. The journal Cellular & Molecular Immunology says COVID-19 was first called “Wuhan pneumonia.” Chinese scientists later renamed the virus “novel coronavirus-infected pneumonia (NCIP).”

So we went from the disease being defined by life-threatening pneumonia to a definition now so broad to include a headache, chills and a loss of taste, confirms the CDC.

Dr. Gerald Evans, head of Queen’s University’s infectious diseases division, told the National Post: “That fact that [Trump] has worrisome features like high fever and hypoxemia (low blood-oxygen levels) early in his illness, suggests the possibility that a more severe second course may yet be in the future.”

Hypoxia? According the Mayo Clinic, Trump would need to dip under 90% before he deserved that label; yet the CNN reports that his oxygen level only went as low as 93%.

93% is not really all that low. I have to wonder if Trump’s medical staff have been regularly checking his oxygen levels prior to his diagnosis (in order to have a baseline). My oximeter shows my oxygen levels go as low 96% (at rest) on a regular basis. I’m a little more than half Trump’s age and complete a 7km run each day (with my mouth closed). So if a highly stressed 74-year-old man’s oxygen saturation dips to only 3% less than mine, I’m not going to sound the COVID alarm.

Despite popular belief 99% or 100% blood saturation level may be a sign of ill health. “An oxygen saturation of 100 percent would suggest that the bond between red blood cells and oxygen molecules is too strong, reducing the blood cells’ ability to deliver oxygen to muscles, organs and tissues,” writes world-renowned breathing specialist Patrick McKeown in his book The Oxygen Advantage. “We need the blood to release oxygen, not hold on to it.”

In other words, a drop in blood O₂ is often a sign that your cells are absorbing more oxygen, not always necessarily that your lungs are delivering less. The fact that some people can maintain a 99% reading is actually more alarming to me. It’s a sign that their cells may not be absorbing enough oxygen from their bloodstream.

Therefore, if Trump is holding only 93% he doesn’t have hypoxia, pneumonia or a severe respiratory condition. At this time last year, if someone was infected with a coronavirus and was short of breath, do you know what we would have said they had?

The common cold.

Goldman’s Cecil Medicine, Expert Consult Premium Edition says that 15% of colds are caused by the coronaviruses. But the common cold doesn’t kill people, does it?

Yes, it does. “Most people recover within about 7-10 days,” says the CDC in Common Colds: Protect Yourself and Others. “However, people with weakened immune systems, asthma, or respiratory conditions may develop serious illness, such as bronchitis or pneumonia.”

Sound familiar?

COVID-19 is quite possibly a frightening new name for the common cold (which sometimes becomes deadly). History may look back at all this sensationalism over a president having a cold and get a good belly laugh. My guess is Mr. Trump will soon be back in the Oval Office polarizing America one Tweet at a time.