Trump is really infected, here's how we know

The image from the Whitehouse press pool is grainy because
the photographer had to shoot with a telephoto lens. He had to
stand a little ways back from the president who is now contagious
--perhaps the first real clue that this infection is not staged.

don't mean to suggest that Donald Trump's COVID-19 infection is only a trumped-up claim, no pun intended. If anything, his positive test certainly took long in coming considering how much he has flaunted safety precautions against this disease. The announcement that he tested positive is even anti-climactic, given that he said he was already put on a hydroxy-chloroquine regimen several weeks ago. 

   Besides, as he likes to say, Washington "leaks like a sieve" and a grand conspiracy to fake COVID-19 infection of a patient as high-profile as POTUS is like a million "inside story" books waiting to be written to compete for the New York best sellers list. When you have that many people jostling for position to be the first to spring the blow-by-blow account, it's impossible to keep the lid on a plot so sinister.

   The infection is real, of that we can be sure. Now the aftermath unfolding is ringing all kinds of dinner bells for the hunter of more true conspiracy theories. It is not helped by the fact that the Whitehouse continuously fires off these bursts of chaff to divert all incoming missiles. Depending on the time of day, or the audience being addressed, characterizations of the president's condition cover the whole range from sick as a guppy to strong as an ornery bull.  What gives?

   First of all, someone getting sick of COVID-19 is as newsy as someone getting wet because he walked under the rain. More than 35 million people worldwide  have contracted the disease--over one million have died. In the US alone the number of infections as of today, October 4, 2020, is north of seven million, with 209,000 victims dying.  Each one got no more than passing mention and two lines in an obituary. However, there were a few exceptions whose death the world somewhat took notice of. 

   Dr. Li Wenliang died after contracting the virus on a Friday, February 7, 2020. He was the Chinese doctor working at the Wuhan viral research laboratory who raised the first alarm that a new strain of a flu-like virus had somehow sprung from the petri dish and could be the progeny of a new global pandemic.  His death is notable but only in hindsight as an abject lesson in believing somebody who makes what lawyers call an "admission against self-interest."  He was healthy enough yet when he made that embarrassing announcement, for which he quickly lost his job. Had anyone stopped to think that maybe he knew much more was at stake than just a lousy job, they would have heard his urgent plaintive message clearer.

   Once the disease was out of control, then came a succession of heroic deaths by other medical personnel all over the world: doctors, nurses, EMT crews, mostly people in the frontlines who faced the front of the pandemic wave, absorbing most of the impact to spare the rest of us standing in total apathy behind them.  Now, we're beginning to take stock of the heroism of these people, but only long after we've cremated their remains. 

   What made for the significance of the deaths of these COVID-19 victims were the circumstances in which they died. They died in our place. You'd think every doctrinaire believer who knows about the concept of substitutionary death would understand. But while the idea is well-accepted  as applied to atonement, we have not  appreciated these lesser mortal heroes enough  just because they only saved our lives and not our souls.  Nevertheless, we still owe it to them to mark their passing with an understanding of the priceless value of human life. Not all of humanity--just one life. One life matters enough.

   That life could even be Donald Trump's. That is why his infection matters, not because he is president of the United States. Because he is human, like the rest of us. It is not democracy that makes us all equal--one man, one vote--we are equal because of our common mortality.  It did not take all the combined military might of the world's armies, or the pooled bullions of the world economies, or the summarized wisdom of all human knowledge to make us realize that vulnerability. All it took is the sub-molecular virus, arguably the simplest creation of God, to make us to come to terms with our human limitation.

   Donald Trump's mantra on the COVID-19 disease was "it's nothing serious." On closer look, his prescription for it was not actually denial, necessarily, but avoidance. Yes, it can make someone sick. But that someone need not be you. It always happens to the other person--and for many that is assurance enough. Just like between two friends who met a grisly bear on a hiking trail. One guy quickly removed his hiking boots and started putting on light rubber sneakers. His friend said, "What are you putting on sneakers for? You can't outrun a grisly bear?!" to which his friend replied, "I'm not trying to outrun the bear, I'm just trying to outrun you!"  Maybe they were not friends, after all.

   The unofficial official policy of "admission and avoidance" by the Trump Administration is what informed every fatal decision it made since early December 2019.  From banning travel in and from China--sort of like locking the barndoors after the horse had been stolen--to refusing to make the wearing of masks mandatory. But the most critical of these mistakes was putting the public on relaxed footing instead of heightened guard. Thus when Donald Trump contracted the virus finally, all the puppet strings are now clearly visible, giving everyone enough time to scramble for PPE. It also erased the buffer for delayed response. People realized that skydivers who jumped out of airplanes with parachutes strapped to their backs generally landed on earth fine. The jury is still out on those who jumped without a parachute and are still in mid-air, because looking up to them from the ground they still seemed to be doing okay. But just wait till they are reunited with terra firma.

   That is Trump's problem. It's a really short jump. With still thirty days to go before the elections,  the world would surely behold how Donald Trump ultimately fares with the disease. The virus is only virulent the first 14 days and whatever popular empathy he is able to generate during the incubation period will be very difficult to stretch for another 15 days after he's supposed to have come out of the woods. That's how we know, finally, that this infection is the real mccoy. Intelligent campaign strategists would have started from election day and counted fourteen days backwards. That is when they should have made the announcement if it was really a red herring. If he was only faking the sickness, it won't matter anymore the day after he had cashed in on the sympathy to hoodwink a few swing voters. Ⓒ 2020 Joel R. Dizon

NOTE FROM JOEL: Hi, folks! Recently, I started a YouTube channel which is called "Parables and Reason" It  is kind of similar to this blog content-wise. You can check out my channel by clicking the link below:

 Joel R. Dizon - PARABLES AND REASON