Presidential

The big news today is the the US President has the coronavirus. It actually was announced around 1 AM this morning - I was having trouble falling asleep, so happened to hear it live.

As the president and first lady are now infected and isolating, it raises a lot of questions: What happens with the rest of the election campaign? Wasn't he taking prophylactic hydroxychloroquine? Does this mean masks actually do work and large gatherings are a bad idea during a pandemic? What happens if a presidential candidate dies before the election, or sometime after being elected but before being sworn in? 

Some people think it may be a hoax, announced for sympathy, to get out of the next presidential debate (the first one was this week and... did not go well), or to show how easy it is to "recover." Apparently someone predicted that his "October Surprise" would be an announcement like this, intended to dominate the news and then show the success of his promoted treatment.

I believe he is infected, though. A very smart friend of mine pointed out that the ~4 hour time lapse between when it was announced that his very close advisor tested positive, and when the president announced he was also positive, was just enough time to have performed several rapid tests followed by a PCR RNA test to confirm. I'm not sure why everyone is surprised, as he's been downplaying the virus for months and generally refuses to take even basic precautions like wearing a mask. He's also been on the campaign trail, attending rallies and events packed with other like-minded, unmasked attendees, where other people have been known to have picked up the virus. It was really only a matter of time, in my opinion.

People are also wondering if he may have infected his opponent at this week's debate. From what I heard, they were both tested and negative before the debate, so the assumption is that he picked it up afterwards. If he did already have it then, there is a slim chance that someone could be undetectably infected and still be infectious to others, but it doesn't sound likely.

Even though he's at risk due to his age and likely health conditions, he also has access to probably the best medical care in the world, so I'm curious to see how this turns out and if it either encourages skeptics to take this virus more seriously, or just shows that anyone can get it and recover and be fine. If things weren't interesting before, they are definitely becoming interesting now...