OMD: Our President has COVID-19

An October Mega Disaster (OMD) struck the White House.  Both Melania and Donald Trump were diagnosed positive for COVID-19.  Worse, they are not asymptomatic, and the President was already showing signs of fatigue yesterday when he actually went to his New Jersey fundraiser even though he knew that close aide Hope Hicks (shown here with Trump) the previous night tested positive.  Signs of a serious cluster loom as several White House staffers have also tested positive.

From Joe Biden:

In a tweet today morning, Biden said he and his wife “send our thoughts to President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump for a swift recovery. We will continue to pray for the health and safety of the president and his family.”

Biden, Kamala Harris and VP Mike Pence tested negative.  Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah) also just tested positive, and a couple of days ago met with Supreme Court nominee Amy Barrett (left).

One point to underscore is that if you have been in close contact with an infected person, you might not show any symptoms for a week or two.  This is why people are quarantined for two weeks.

A few questions come up:

• Will the Pence-Harris debate occur next Wednesday (USA Today's Susan Page moderates)?  Almost surely.
• What about Trump-Biden on October 15 in Miami (Steve Scully of C-SPAN for a town meeting)?  Not quite 14-days for the quarantine, and good reason for Biden to magnanimously indicate that they should wait until...

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  ...the third presidential debate in Nashville (Kristen Welker of NBC).  Of course, both debates could be done virtually, but this OMG allows Biden to graciously avoid going through another uncomfortable encounter.

Some other thoughts and potential conspiracy theories:

• If Trump and Pence go on ventilators, Nancy Pelosi becomes acting president.  Can she scuttle the Supreme Court confirmation process?  Who knew that Senator Chuck Grassley, not Mitch McConnell, was, then, next in line.

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  Was Hope Hicks' infection a Democratic ploy?  Nope, for all signs are that this is related to Republicans meeting each other.  It's possible that the contagion started a week ago when Trump and Hicks met with Ronna McDaniel (right), chairwomen of the Republican National Committee.  She tested positive soon thereafter.  This will gain clarity over the next few days.  

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  How will this affect the presidential election?  There will be some sympathy votes for Trump, but he won't be able to campaign much during this crucial period.  There will be a consensus that a lack of cohesive policy to combat the pandemic was his fault, combined with his adversity to masks, what CDC Director Robert Redfield said to the U.S. Congress was more effective than any coming vaccine.

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  Are those "mild" symptoms truly mild?  Trump, for the first time in eons, did not tweet last night.  In any case the usual symptomatic process is a cold-like initial effect, followed by something closer to a flu, then the worse illness you will ever get, for some.  Unfortunately, the President has pre-conditions, said to be just about obese with a pre-diabetic blood count.  Plus, what was wrong with him twice this year when his personal doctors refused to provide details?  Finally, he is 74, and the mortality rate increases with age.

On 13 April 2020 my blog was titled:  A Fitting Bachi.  Here is what I said:

This could well have been the last straw.  Bachi is the Japanese term for retribution, facing the music, punishment for lying and so forth.  Considering the damage he has done, and observing the grateful reaction of  Boris Johnson to recovering from COVID-19, wouldn't it be convenient and appropriate for Donald Trump to catch this novel coronavirus infection?

In my favorite music countdown, I'm now at #89.  This one is simple.  Will You Love Me Tomorrow by the Shirelles.  Has nothing to do with title itself.  Just symbolically, it kept getting played during memorable periods when I was on the Stanford campus.  The Shirelles came to the Garden of Allah.  My girlfriend during that period had this song at her top, from when she was still in high school in 1960.  I recall my eating club had a champagne party the night before, where this song must have been played a couple times, but when we woke up the following morning, January 20, 1962, the whole campus was covered with snow.

The song was written by Gerry Goffin and Carole King (their marriage was coming to an end just about the time they put this together), and the Shirelles released the record in 1960.  It hit #1 on Billboard, the first by a black all-girl group.  The original pressing actually gave the title only as Tomorrow.  Some radio stations banned it because the lyrics were too sexually charged.  Billboard named WYLMT #3 on their list of 100 Greatest Girl Group Songs of All Time.   

Carole King herself recorded this song in 1971, which  was on her Tapestry album.  Playing background vocals were James Taylor (King had four marriages, but not to him) and Joni Mitchell.  I saw the Broadway musical Beautiful when I was last in New York City, and the song was featured, at least in part, four times.

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