Donald & Melania Trump Test Positive for COVID-19

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Frankly, I'm surprised that it took as long as it did:

 

Heh. Infection totals are still only ~2% of the population in the US

I suppose you mean you think his behavior has been riskier than average? Perhaps. Preliminary info seems to indicate he got it from one of his close advisers and not some rando out in public though

 

You are not a horrible person, but I think you have a very distorted view of Trump and the COVID-19 disease which is unfortunate. Almost everything you've said in this post has been a distortion of the truth.

Trump has taken the virus seriously since it presented itself as serious, and before many of the other US politicians and media that excoriate him now did. When Trump banned travel from China, the media and Democrat politicians called him xenophobic. Andrew Cuomo in New York played down the virus for weeks (maybe months; I'd have to check the timeline) telling his constituents not to give in to baseless fears. Trump provided everything the states asked of him, even though it turned out they didn't need what they asked for.

Like I said in another thread, he never proposed anyone inject themselves with bleach. There is nothing wrong with telling the public that there are promising therapeutics, and just because a drug is "unproven" does not make it ineffective.

How does him catching the virus show any kind of hypocrisy? Does it show he should have taken better precautions? Maybe, but I don't think so; he's the President and needs to be in contact with people especially his advisors (which seems to be where he caught it). And it's true that the virus is overblown in the media, though at Trump's age and health situation he's more at risk than most. He seems to be doing well so far unless his doctor is lying to us.

We (the US in general) are in a much better position than 6 months ago.

 

That's what I meant, yes. That he got it from a member of his own staff who likely followed his example in terms of not respecting the necessary precautions is no surprise either.

Edit: I'm going to merge both Alley threads since they're both basically about the same subject.

 

Ummm . . . what?

Trump has disparaged masks well after it was clear to everyone how serious the disease was and that masks are efficacious in slowing/halting the spread of the virus.

Trump was made aware of the degree of danger the disease likely posed and chose not to say anything, after-the-fact claiming his motivation was to avoid "panic," but, given the other things he has said which would only serve to engender panic, I personally do not believe his justification.

I'm sorry BTA, but it looks to me like your views on Trump are just as distorted as you are indicating other people's beliefs are.

I do not wish anyone ill, and so I hope his case and the cases of the various other people he has been in contact with clear up quickly and without long-term negative health implications, but the way he has flouted the scientific advice provided by the CDC and others (and the way his political appointees have attempted to skew that advice) clearly give rise to a "karma" interpretation, and accompanying Schadenfreude, that is quite understandable.

It would be quite a sight (and also would be politically savvy on his part), if he came out of Walter Reed and went on the air to inform the American public that he was very wrong in his initial and continued mocking of masks and other scientific reports and advice, and to advise everyone how serious this is and to wear masks and take social distancing precautions. I would presume his advisors would tell him to do that, but I seriously doubt that he is capable of doing that.

 

Disparaging mask wearing has nothing to do with taking or not taking the disease seriously. As I've said previously mask wearing is not a panacea; it is perfectly valid for people to decide to wear or not wear a mask given their own risk tolerance and the information provided about their effectiveness. Trump himself wore a mask when he (or his doctors or whomever) felt it appropriate.

He took the disease seriously in the actions his administration took including to help the states who asked for help and putting together the coronavirus task force to study and make recommendations about the disease.

 

I don't think that you've taken on board anything that we've discussed on the subject of wearing masks. It doesn't work if only some people wear masks, unless we're talking about N95 or better masks, but you practically never see any politicians (Trump included) wearing such masks. It's practically always regular surgical or 3-layer equivalent masks, which are only effective when EVERYONE wears them. Hence this being a requirement almost world-wide in public venues and not something you do "if you feel like it" or don't happen to subscribe to one of a dozen conspiracy theories of the month.

I have to agree with dmc on this, you're viewing Trump's actions in an excessively positive light that they don't factually deserve.

I've watched the briefing where he discussed the possible potential of injecting disinfectants and other potentially lethal "good ideas". He was dead serious about it and the doctor also present there was literally left speechless because she couldn't tell him to shut up about things he knows nothing about, also forgetting to mention that for God's sake, nobody do something as stupid as what Trump was going on about, because it WILL very likely kill you.

And as it turned out later, quite a few of Trump's supporters followed his suggestions and did end up ingesting disinfectant and/or bleach, killing themselves in the process. After the news about that came out, Trump started saying that he was "sarcastic" when he said those things. Which is a complete and utter lie that anyone can verify by looking at the video of the briefing. Heck, it'd be even worse if it wasn't a lie.

Leading by example is leadership 101. Trump's leadership regarding covid-19 was nothing but denial, downplaying, lies, "sarcasm", not respecting the most basic precautions implemented world-wide and eventually contracting the coronavirus due to all of the above. Not trying to sound morbid, but if he dies from it, it'll be the best leading by example that he'll have done in the whole matter, at least as far as cautionary tales go.

 

Trump wore a mask on many occasions presumably when it was appropriate to do so. He did disparage others who wore masks at times where he felt it was not appropriate especially when it was hanging around their chin.

Talk to Sweden about wearing masks. So it's fine if you want to believe masks are the right way to go, but there a plenty of people who would disagree with you. It depends on what you are trying to accomplish. Originally what was said (at least in this country) was all we wanted to accomplish was to keep people at home for a couple of weeks to slow the spread of the disease so hospitals would not get overwhelmed. Now it has pretty much extended to indefinite lockdowns which I think is doing more harm than good.

I can't find a story where anyone died because they ingested or injected bleach or any other household cleaner because Trump told them to. There are some stories where poison control calls were higher than prior periods, but none said anything about "Trump made me do it" and there was already increased use of cleaning products around households due to COVID-19. And you'd have to be an idiot to ingest or inject household cleaners so forgive me if I have no sympathy. Like the pair of idiots who ate/drank fishtank cleaner because they saw it had chloroquine phosphate in it.

I don't agree with your characterization of Trump's response to COVID-19 at all, but like I've said in the past, I can't listen to politicians because they are all full of crap so maybe I've not been exposed to his words as much. I look at the actions the Trump administration took to combat the disease and I think the Trump administration did a fair job.

 

Well, BTA, you might want to take 10 minutes and scan Trump's actual words in a linear format, interspersed with the number of dead and what he knew. It might change your mind, or it might not.

https://doggett.house.gov/media-center/blog-posts/timeline-trump-s-coronavirus-responses

April 23-27 are interesting.

 

dmc - Like I said, I don't care what politicians say, I look at what they do. So what did you want me to see in there? That Trump was playing the cheerleader rather than giving it to the citizen's straight? Are you saying you think a different President wouldn't try the same thing? I doubt anyone else would have wanted to drive the doom and gloom rather than trying to keep up hope. Look at Andrew Cuomo in New York for his cheerleading and downplaying as he was mandating nursing homes take COVID-19 positive people in. Now he's some kind of hero.

Dice - As I said: There was already an increase in use of household cleaning products due to the coronavirus, so naturally poisoning accidents would increase. I think your link proves my point. The year-over-year spike started in March before Trump's stupid comment at the end of April.

 

There are actually relatively few people (conspiracy theorists aside), especially outside the US, who are convinced that masks aren't effective. There has been enough research done and real life examples in Asia made to get the point across to anyone willing to listen to medial experts. Sweden had 10x the infection rate that we had here and a population much more observant of social distancing and other precautions than most other European nations, let alone the US. They also have a great public healthcare system that could afford caring for a high number of covid-19 patients without detriment to others -- many if not most EU countries do not have that luxury. And I'm sure I don't need to mention how many worlds away the US is in this regard.

 

Yes, I'm not claiming masks are ineffective, and I was not trying to argue with you about that; I was trying to point out that people/governments can have different goals than trying to prevent as many people as possible from catching the disease.

 

More in the original article: Trump mounts bizarre and misleading White House return despite warnings

Nothing to add here, really. This has gone exactly as expected in terms of Trump milking it for all that he can and continuing to champion his coronavirus misinformation campaign.