The early bird does not always get the worm. Night owls in America learned in the wee hours of Friday morning that both President Donald Trump and the First Lady Melania Trump tested positive for Covid-19.
“Tonight, @FLOTUS and I tested positive for COVID-19,” Trump posted on Twitter shortly before 1 a.m. “We will begin our quarantine and recovery process immediately. We will get through this TOGETHER!”
This comes on the heels of the earlier announcement that White House aide Hope Hicks tested positive for the novel coronavirus.
President Trump, amongst other things, has famously dubbed the virus as the “China Virus” and “Wuhan Flu,” while also notably downplaying the virus that has claimed the lives of 207,000 Americans and counting. Trump himself now stands face to face with the virus that has killed over one million people worldwide in the largest global pandemic in a century.
Media scrutiny and public outcry continues to dredge up every word spoken and every action taken by Trump since the onset of the pandemic, looking through the lens of this most recent development in the live action reality television episode of the present moment. The cameras will soon point towards Vice President Joe Biden, who squared off against Trump in the first presidential debate just days earlier, as Americans eagerly anticipate his coronavirus test results .
The cloudy crystal ball of America’s future with its already faint glow is now murkier than ever. The eyes of all the world are now turned to Trump’s headline battle with Covid-19. Whatever the outcome may be, this moment will sear an indelible mark on a year aflame with misfortune, plunging us deeper down the desolate rabbit hole of 2020.
Update: On October 4, Vice President Joe Biden announced he and his wife had tested negative for the virus.