I woke up on October 2, my mother’s first birthday since she died of COVID-19 in May, with the news that the president of the United States had tested positive, incredibly believable, but absolutely believable.
The guy who mocked his opponent for dressing in masks, who minimized the dangers of the virus to the American public, who said he would disappear “like a miracle” had now contracted the virus himself. And the global total found out on my mother’s birthday.
I knew as my mother approached her birthday weekend that it would be painful; I may not have predicted how much anger would combine with my sadness, but with the new revelation, I have grown increasingly angry.
The president, it turns out now, not only did he not attach himself to protocol when he knew he had been exposed to the virus, but continued to interact with others when he already showed symptoms. When the news announced he was getting a mixture of experimental drugs. , adding Remdesivir, at first with only mild symptoms, I imagine my mom waiting for the medicine in the ICU. Remdesivir won its emergency approval the same week it diagnosed COVID-19, but because the government ruined the distribution, take it two weeks before it won its first dose. He died two days later.
When former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, one of trump’s positive numbers in orbit, checked into the hospital “as a precaution,” I imagined all the other people who were rejected out of capacity and didn’t get the care they needed.
As the country waits for news on the president’s status, it occurs to me to call the nurses station every day and then wait for the doctors to call us back with updates because of course we couldn’t be there.
When the president, still being treated for a highly contagious disease, left the hospital for what was necessarily a parade, endangering the lives of his Secret Service agents, I imagine that after my mom went to the hospital, I never saw her again. how I told him I enjoyed it on FaceTime, crying and grabbing my phone because I couldn’t hold his hand.
Tens of thousands of Americans have stories like this: parents who couldn’t be admitted to hospitals, medical providers who didn’t have the right medications at hand, remote farewells. I know that even with the most productive point of attention (and she was still) given a greater point of attention than many other people in this country), my immunocompromised 64-year-old mother could be dead. I also recognize that the president will get a different point of attention than any other citizen. understanding how the global works doesn’t make it any less painful.
Perhaps if the United States had worked to protect its citizens as countries with far fewer resources did, I would not feel that way, but Trump and many other politicians in the country have shown contempt for the lives of their fellow Americans, mocking and even mocking the guidelines of public aptitude. They boosted the opening up of the economy, even if it meant more people would be in poor physical shape and die. They applauded the protesters against the blockade. They opposed the mask authorizations and, when they themselves became ill, they obtained a remedy without success for many others.
Before Trump left Walter Reed Medical Center, he tweeted he felt better than he did 20 years ago; suggested to his followers not to be feared of COVID-19. “Don’t let him dominate your life,” he wrote.
It’s another blow to the heart. Nothing will bring my mother or the other 210,000 people back to the United States who died of COVID-19, however, for those of us who lost someone to this terrible virus, the tweet betrayed not only indifference, but also the will to let the death toll increase.