condition. they assured me that is not the case. it s really about privacy and safety. he does have an iv, after which he s going to use antibiotics but not a breathing machine or anything like that. when i talked to the president s staff they said, look, you know, this is what s going on. but we re really we re truly optimistic he s going to do well. we want to make sure that, you know, that s conveyed. and then i spoke to his doctors to sort of get the details. doing well means what exactly? well, it means the white blood cell count is improving, fever is improving. again, as you asked about an early indication if this has anything to do with his heart or covid. it does sound optimistic. people will hear sepsis in a 75-year-old and understandably become concerned. but if treated early and he s responding to these medications, it can be adequately treated. and the fact they re talking about potentially sending him home tomorrow is obviously a good sign.
systems i went through with heart rate, respiratory rate, fever. then there s what we get on our lab values. we get that lab culture of our blood, is there something growing, like a bacteria or a fungus. then we also get basic labs like our white blood cell count, which for all of our viewers out there, that s the cells in your blood that are fighting off infection. if they re really high, that means, gosh, you might be fighting off an infection. if they re coming back down again, that means the president is responding to therapies. that s why that s a really good clinical indicator, that s a quantitative lab indicator saying the president is getting better. so that s a really good sign. when the doctors who put out this statement said they are consulting with his cardiologist, obviously this incident seems to have happened in california, he was hospitalized in california, he s been hospitalized since tuesday and remains there, they say they hope to have him go home soon. but for som
that has nothing to do with the severity of his condition. it s more about safety and security. clinton was admitted to the hospital to get treatment for a urinary tract infection that spread to his blood stream. his doctors said this. his white blood cell count is trending down and is responding to antibiotics well. the california-based medical team has been in constant communication with his new york medical team. they hope to have him home soon. dr. marc siegel says infections are fairly common in people over 75 and there s relief that clinton has been given antibiotics. the good news is it tends to respond well to antibiotics. if he s turning the corner, it s a very good sign. the former president s wife, former secretary of state hillary clinton, was also seen leaving the hospital after visiting with him.
doctors say former president bill clinton is on the mend in a california icu since tuesday for a urinary tract infection that spread to his bloodstream. jamie is with us now. so do we know when he will potentially be able to go home from the hospital? not quite yet. but it is looking a lot better. according to a source familiar with his condition, he is really improving, but the doctors are still making rounds. they re continuing to monitor him. one report was that his white blood cell count is trending down. he s responding to antibiotics well. we hope to have him go home soon. i could also tell you on a lighter note, our colleague sara sidner who is standing outside of the hospital and i have found out that hillary clinton has been there visiting.
because when you get an infection in the blood, that essentially means that it is systemic and that is why it is so necessary to treat those with antibiotics aggressively, which he s receiving, sounds like he s responding. how do they know that? typically people feel better, but also their fever may start to decrease, the white blood cell count, which is usually an indication of infection, they said that was also trending downward as well, they said. so the laboratory values as well as his overall well-being sounds like it s going in the right direction. but he is in the icu, he s going to be there at least another day, at which point they may put him on oral antibiotics because he wouldn t be able to get out of the hospital still if he had the iv antibiotics. they re going to be making those decisions over the next 24 hours or so. all right. icu, that s always scary, but again, this is a former president. it keeps him isolated, it gives him more privacy. that s right. we ll stay