"Empathy, human decency, and a concern for others"
Stricken with coronavirus and hospitalized since Oct. 2, US President Donald Trump shows that he has learned very few lessons about the disease that he ignored and dismissed for so many months, to the peril of 210,000 of his countrymen who have died since the pandemic started.
While receiving the best medical care unavailable to the vast majority of Americans, Mr. Trump saw fit to ride out of the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in an SUV so he could wave through the glass window at supporters who had gathered around the hospital.
He and the Secret Service agents who were inside the car with him were all wearing masks, but an attending physician at Walter Reed said the drive-by risked the lives of the men who accompanied him in his SUV.
“Every single person in the vehicle during that completely unnecessary Presidential ‘drive-by’ just now has to be quarantined for 14 days. They might get sick. They may die. For political theater. Commanded by Trump to put their lives at risk for theater. This is insanity,” Dr. James Phillips said on his Twitter account.
“That Presidential SUV is not only bulletproof, but hermetically sealed against chemical attack. The risk of COVID19 transmission inside is as high as it gets outside of medical procedures. The irresponsibility is astounding. My thoughts are with the Secret Service forced to play,” Phillips tweeted.
The presidential joy ride was clearly aimed at showing that Mr. Trump remained strong—an impression he chose to convey in a video tweet.
“I came here, wasn’t feeling so well. I feel much better now. We are working hard to get me all the way back. I have to be back because we still have to make America great again. We have done an awfully good job of that, but we still have steps to go and we have to finish that job”, he said. “I will be back, and I think I will be back soon and I look forward to finishing the campaign the way it started and the way we have been doing, the kind of numbers we had been doing and I am proud of it.”
So it was that in the middle of a raging pandemic and with the virus inside his body, Mr. Trump chose to look back with pride at the crowds of unprotected supporters—with no masks and no social distancing—that he drew to his rallies, with the full knowledge that they, too, could be infected and fall seriously ill.
But none of that seems to matter to his campaign. Clearly looking forward to a revival of these rallies, a senior campaign adviser, Jason Miller, said they would continue to take temperatures and give out hand sanitizer and masks as supporters enter the rallies, but did not say anything about finally requiring attendees to wear those masks and to stay a safe distance apart.
“We’re not going to hide in fear,” Miller insisted—clearly echoing his boss.
Mr. Trump says he has learned a lot about the virus since he’s been hospitalized, but it seems the only thing he has really learned is that he—but not his followers—needs to wear a mask to stay safe.
For a President who has consistently resisted science, that is quite an admission, but there are many other aspects that elude him. Chief among them are empathy, human decency and a concern for others—even his own supporters and the people who work for him.