David Lat Moved From Intensive Care After Coronavirus

David Lat’s medical condition has improved, with easier breathing and better oxygen levels and his has been moved from intensive care.

Lat was placed in intensive care after falling ill with the virus and his doctors remained uncertain on his prognosis, according to Lat’s husband, Zachary Shemtob.

However he has since been moved from intensive care and is feeling considerably better.

He wrote on Saturday night in a Facebook post that “I’m doing worlds better than I was this time … last week.”

“I was just transferred out of the ICU—to a floor that’s not nearly as nice, but the transfer bodes well because they save ICU beds for the sickest patients,” wrote Lat, and the good news was accompanied by a cheerful video of his young son strumming a mini-guitar and singing.

“I’m doing worlds better than … when I was unconscious and intubated, having a machine breathe for me because I couldn’t do so myself,” wrote Lat, 44, in a six-paragraph public post that quickly drew nearly 500 comments from friends and well-wishers by late Saturday night.

Shemtob said in a phone interview that the physicians at NYU Langone Hospital who are treating Lat, a legal recruiter and the founder of the legal blog Above the Law, have stopped administering to Lat the novel drug therapies that they began giving him earlier.

Lat’s doctors began giving him both a Z-Pak (azithromycin) and the antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine in an effort to beat back his COVID-19 infection, Shemtob has said. The doctors also started administering an IL 6-inhibitor to help fight the extreme inflammation of Lat’s lungs caused by the virus.

By about Monday, after what Shemtob believes was two IL 6-inhibitor treatments, the physicians decided not to give him more, at least for now, said Shemtob. By Wednesday, they stopped the Z-Pak (azithromycin) and hydroxychloroquine therapy and his position has since improved to the point where he could once again engage with his social media community and family.