Washington: US President Donald Trump along with the first lady Melania Trump tested postive for COVID-19 on Friday. The president once said that ‘nasty coronavirus’ is behind us and it will get worse in US before it gets better.
“It will probably, unfortunately, get worse before it gets better. I don’t like saying that, but that’s the way it is,” Trump said.
Trump’s relationship with masks
Donald Trump always had a strained relationship with masks. In the initial phases of the pandemic, when coronavirus cases in the United States were on a steep upward curve, Donald Trump was repeatedly spotted without any mask on. In fact, he has been known to make fun of those who do wear masks – almost as if it was a sign of weakness.
Trump once mocked a White House correspondent for wearing a mask to a press briefing. Yes, that really happened, even as we’re in the middle of a global pandemic and more than 1 lakh people in the US have died owing to Covid-19.
Just a few days ago, Donald Trump was spotted at a factory tour in Michigan. In public, he refused to wear a mask but in one candid photo, he was seen sporting one.
Why Donald Trump is so against the idea of being seen in public with a mask?
The answer is very simple and silly, Donald Trump doesn’t want the press to see it. For Trump, who believes that every reporter interrogating him is out to undermine him, being photographed with a mask is victory for the press and defeat for him. He said it himself, “I didn’t want to give the press the pleasure of seeing it (mask).” He had also said that he refused to wear a mask, despite CDC (Centre of Disease Control) warnings, because it would send the “wrong message” and would make him look ridiculous and weak.
No one knows what exactly Trump’s problem with face masks is. Last month, he had said that he refused to wear a mask, despite CDC warnings, because it would send the “wrong message” and would make him look ridiculous and weak.
Last week, Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the leading U.S. official on infectious diseases, hit back at President Donald Trump for what he called the misrepresentation of his stance on using masks to curb the coronavirus.
In one of the presidential debate, Donald Trump claimed that Dr. Fauci initially said “masks are not good — then he changed his mind.” And when former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. said wearing masks could save tens of thousands of lives, Mr. Trump contended that “Dr. Fauci said the opposite.”
We think that at least now, Donald Trump learned a lesson as he tested positive for COVID-19 after repeated warnings from both World Health organisation and CDC about the dangers of stepping out without a mask.