Trump’s positive test thrusts world into uncharted territory
PARIS — News that the world’s most powerful man was infected with the world’s most notorious disease dominated screens large and small, drawing shock, sympathy and some barbs for President Donald Trump.
The outpouring from world leaders and flagging markets Friday left little doubt that Trump’s illness will have global implications — even if they’re still unknown. Trump’s announcement on Twitter that he and first lady Melania Trump tested positive for the coronavirus prompted a multitude of responses on the same platform, as well as others.
From India to Qatar to Mexico, world leaders were quick to offer official sympathy from the top, many in the form of tweets directly to Trump, while something approaching schadenfreude bubbled up from elsewhere. Trump is the most prominent on a growing list of powerful people who have contracted the virus, including many who were skeptical of the disease.
“I’m sure that your inherent vitality, good spirits and optimism will help you cope with the dangerous virus,” Russian President VladimirPutinwrote in a direct message to Trump released by the Kremlin.
World Health Organization director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus tweeted “My best wishes to President @realDonaldTrump and @FLOTUS for a full and speedy recovery.” The Trump administration in July formally notified the UnitedNations of its withdrawal from WHO, although the pullout won’t take effect until next year.
Italian right-wing opposition leader Matteo Salvini tweeted: “In Italy and in the world, whoever celebrates the illness of a man or of a woman, and who comes to wish the death of a neighbor, confirms what he is: An idiot without soul. A hug to Melania and Donald.”
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who was hospitalized for a week in April after he contracted COVID-19, wished Trump a “speedy recovery.”
Dr. Bharat Pankhania, who advises Johnson’s government on communicable disease control, said he hopes that Trump’s positive test sends a message.
“We need politicians, especially politicians like President Trump who has a lot of power and influence, to take this seriously and to support their scientists and clinicians in leading the outbreak management, rather than have political influence in trying to deny that this virus is in circulation and drag your feet around control measures because it suited your agenda.”
Major media across the globe played up the announcement, with bulletins crawling across TV screens in Paris and Rome, Seoul and Beijing.
China’s official Xinhua News Agency flashed the
news, and an anchor on state broadcaster CCTV announced it. Late Friday, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hua Chunying tweeted that he was “saddened to learn president and the first lady of the U.S. tested positive. Hope they both have a speedy recovery and will be fine.”
The Chinese government has bristled at Trump’s attempts to blame China, where the disease emerged, for the pandemic and called for global cooperation in fighting it.
Hu Xijin, the outspoken editor of the state-owned Global Times newspaper, tweeted in English that “President Trump and the first lady have paid the price for his gamble to play down the COVID-19.”
Multiple Arab news media outlets continuously broadcast footage of Trump and his wife after the virus announcement.
Iranian state television announced Trump had the virus, an anchor breaking the news with an unflattering image of the U.S. president surrounded by what appeared to be giant coronaviruses. Later, an anchor noted that “the American president, who treated the coronavirus almost like it was nothing, finally caught it.”