The president of the United States has tested positive for COVID-19 after he spent months playing down the dangerous outbreak that has killed nearly 209,000 people in the United States. Trump’s diagnosis came just hours after he insisted that “the end of the pandemic is in sight.”
Now Donald Trump, 74, and First Lady Melania Trump – and possibly others in their inner circle – become the new faces of the novel coronavirus.
Make no mistake: We hope and pray they will all be well. We may strenuously disagree with Trump’s ideology, whims and love of creating chaos, but he is America’s president, and we do not ever wish him or anyone else illness, suffering or anything less than a full recovery.
But also make no mistake: This was preventable. This was avoidable. This did not have to be a national health crisis.
Trump did not have to make light of this pandemic. He did not have to publicly mock masks – even as recently as Tuesday in a debate with challenger and former vice president Joe Biden.