AS CAVALIER AS EVER:
Even among his supporters, many wish the experience would have humbled him.
Trump’s bout with COVID- 19 hasn’t humbled him. Even some supporters wanted to see a change in his attitude.
When Jose Antonio Reyes Dupont died in early September after a threeweek battle with COVID- 19, his son wanted to send the $ 10,000 funeral bill to President Trump.
Reyes, 84, was a lifelong Republican and die- hard Trump supporter who believed it when the president said early in the pandemic that the nation had the novel coronavirus “totally under control” and that it was no worse than the f lu.
His son, Marco Reyes, a 38- year- old Democrat, was still deep in mourning when he turned on the television this week to see Trump boasting to supporters at a Pennsylvania campaign rally about his recent recovery from the disease.
“One great thing about being president: If you’re not feeling 100%, you have got more doctors than you thought existed in the world,” Trump said to cheers.
He went on to say that he “felt like Superman” after receiving a “miracle” experimental antibody treatment.
Alone in his living room outside Miami, the younger Reyes could barely contain himself.
“I literally wanted to jump into the TV and tell him off,” he said.
Trump “says he got a ‘ miracle’ cure,” Reyes said. “My dad didn’t.”
Reyes had hoped that
Trump’s bout with COVID- 19 would be a humbling experience. Instead, the president remains as cavalier as ever about the disease.
Trump’s access to stateof- the- art treatment and his nonchalance — encapsulated in a tweet advising “don’t be afraid of the virus” — have been particular sources of resentment for some of the families of the 218,000 people COVID- 19 has killed in the U. S.
In hospital rooms across the country, patients are starting to ask whether they can receive the same treatment as the president. Families of those who died now wonder whether more could have been done.
The coronavirus outbreak at the White House has refocused attention on how Trump has dealt with the pandemic — his biggest political liability.
A Washington Post/ ABC poll released last weekend found 58% of voters disapprove of how Trump has handled the pandemic.
Many of those are Democrats, but in interviews even Trump’s supporters said he seemed to lack empathy for those who have suffered.
Glenn Perkins, a 74- yearold retired construction worker in Phillipsburg, N. J., who was hospitalized for 32 days in the spring for COVID- 19, said the president should not be “so outspoken with pride.”
“I support Trump. But as president you don’t go around pounding your chest,” Perkins said. “That I do not agree with. It’s a serious thing, the COVID.
“I’m not jealous that he got this special treatment. I’m glad he did. But he’s all puffed up and prideful. He should look not at himself but at all the people who passed away.”
According to Trump’s doctors, he received three main treatments: the steroid dexamethasone, the antiviral drug remdesivir and antibodies developed by Regeneron that are still being tested in clinical trials.
The president also was given supplemental oxygen and took vitamin D, famotidine, melatonin and aspirin, doctors said.
It is impossible to know which treatments helped him recover, or how he would have fared without them.
At recent rallies, Trump has promised that all Americans could soon have access to his level of care. On Tues
day at the rally in workingclass Johnstown, Pa., he said the mortality rate from COVID- 19 would soon be “perfecto.”
“That drug that they gave me, we’re going to be distributing it all over the country to hospitals and everything else, because I’ll tell you, that sucker works,” he said. “That’s my opinion. What do I know? But to me it works.”
His enthusiasm is raising questions at some hospitals.
Dr. Scott Ellner, chief executive of the Billings Clinic, the largest health system in Montana, explained in an all- staff online meeting this week that its medical center in Billings would f ly in about 80 medical workers to help deal with infection rates that have been rising dramatically in parts of the state.
A staff member wanted to know: Would the hospital provide the same level of medications that the president received? Ellner explained the hospital provides dexamethasone and remdesivir but does not have access to the monoclonal antibodies.
“If we could have access
to any of these novel treatments, we would be open to any allocation that’s available,” he said in an interview.
Dr. Otto Yang, a infectious- disease specialist at UCLA, said he has heard similar questions.
But he cautioned against believing the antibody treatment was “better than what the average person can get” — despite Trump’s description of it as a “miracle.”
“The treatment is in clinical trials and is not yet proven to be effective or safe,” Yang said.
Some Trump supporters said that the president’s recovery is a reason to feel hopeful about f ighting the pandemic.
“I expect the elite among us to receive better healthcare,” said Joey Camp, 31, a grill cook at a Waffle House in Cartersville, Ga., who needed supplemental oxygen after he contracted COVID- 19 in March.
Camp, who spent 10 days at a state- run quarantine site, noted that Trump “got better treatment and was out of the hospital after three days at his age.”
“That medical advance,”
he said, “gives me hope that within three months or six months or however long it takes for the vaccine trial, that we may start treating the coronavirus like the f lu.”
Charlene Hughes took a different message from the president’s experience.
A caregiver living outside Minneapolis, she contracted the virus in the spring while working at the home of an elderly couple, one of whom died.
Hughes, who is 41 and has an autoimmune disease, suffered weeks of body aches, fever and coughing. She did not have to go to the hospital, but she racked up hundreds of dollars in out- ofpocket insurance bills to cover tests such as X- rays to monitor her for f luid in the lungs.
“People have been putting their lives on the line, while the president has been downplaying the seriousness of this issue,” she said. “His medical care just affirms the disparities in healthcare in this country.”
‘ He should look not at himself but at all the people who passed away.’ — Glenn Perkins, a Trump supporter who spent over a month in the hospital