WELL WISHES TO THE TRUMPS AND OUR NATION
President Donald Trump’s extraordinary Twitter announcement after midnight Eastern time on
Friday that he and his wife Melania had tested positive for the coronavirus is unnerving news. Those
Americans critical of Trump shouldn’t wish him ill.
With his age and weight, Trump is particularly vulnerable to serious complications or even death.
The San Diego Union-Tribune Editorial Board wishes both Trumps full recoveries. We encourage all Americans to be humans first at this unnerving moment. We also again encourage all Americans to wear masks. For months, the president has not only refused to wear a mask when dealing with others in the Oval Office or at large campaign rallies in swing states around the nation, he has mocked those who do wear masks. This has set an awful example for his administration, our nation and the world.
The people who worked for him in the White
House knew better. In mid-March — at a point when the Trump administration said face masks were necessary for front-line workers but not Americans in general — a National Security Council official made an urgent plea to Taiwan that succeeded in securing thousands of masks for White House staff.
But the president made it clear that he sees his aides and family members wearing masks as an implied rebuke of his handling — his disastrous handling — of the pandemic. On the president’s trip to Cleveland for the Tuesday presidential debate with Joe Biden, reporters on Air Force One, at the
Cleveland airport and at the debate site saw a stunning list of people interacting in close quarters without masks: White House chief of staff Mark Meadows; national security adviser Robert C. O’Brien; top campaign strategist Jason Miller; senior policy advisers Stephen Miller and Jared Kushner; Donald
Trump Jr. and girlfriend Kimberly Guilfoyle; Lara
Trump; and Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio.
Similar blitheness was on display Sept. 26 at the
White House when Trump introduced his Supreme
Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett, who had recovered from her own bout with the coronavirus this summer. Two of those who attended the event without wearing masks — Notre Dame President John
Jenkins and Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah — have since tested positive for the virus. On Friday, Jenkins apologized for his irresponsibility.
A similar apology from Trump from where he is staying, at least for a few days, at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center would be powerful and helpful. A call from him for more Americans to wear masks more often would also be a tonic for this nation. Perhaps the best possible result would be a sense of reckoning among the other politicians, social media figures, Fox News hosts and Trump admirers who have shared the president’s antimask rhetoric and followed his example. The coronavirus pandemic is not going away. Until — and perhaps even after — there is an effective, widely used vaccination, people should wear masks in public. They should practice social distancing. They should avoid, if possible, prolonged periods indoors with non-family members. They should wash their hands frequently and avoid touching their faces.
But most of all, they should finally accept the seriousness of COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus. It has killed more than 200,000 Americans this year, and while death rates are down from early in the pandemic, there is growing evidence that infections can cause permanent damage to the lungs, heart and brain.
Along with the 7 million other Americans who have tested positive, Donald Trump now has this fear to face. We wish good health to him, his wife and this nation of ours, aff licted by a once-in-a-century pandemic that is nowhere near done with us yet.