Flashback to October 2020, just days before an election in the midst of COVID-19’s pandemic early days.. pre-vaccine. Present-lockdowns… President Donald Trump became infected…
There where nightmare scenarios and potentials of transfers of power during those days.
Since then books have been written that speak about how close the nation was to a power transition right before election day.
Today, as we relish in a world that we feel is post-COVID, a few reminders are bringing back that dreaded feeling: Such as Joe Biden becoming the newest and most prominent infected person in the nation.
The situation for Biden could be more troublesome. With his age of 79 factoring in, some have worried about how the virus could effect him, despite his booster shots and Paxlovid treatment. We all hope and prayer for the President’s quick recovery.. But one may ponder if very human mistakes have been made to allow this to occur.
Recently President Biden made an excellent Middle East trip. Prior to that, the Administration said he was not going to be shaking hands due to COVID fears. As soon as the President got off Air Force One, hand shakes, hugs, and kisses were abundant.
Some pondered if the policy of no handshakes–one that was quickly disavowed through practice–was just so he did not have to shake the hands of the controversial Saudi King.
U.S. President Joe Biden will seek to reduce direct contact, such as shaking hands, during his visits to Israel and Saudi Arabia this week as part of enhanced COVID-19 precautions, White House officials said on Wednesday.
When Trump became infected by COVID, a media blitz began to showcase the President still in charge and ready to lead. As a matter of fact, as he was in isolation at Walter Reed, the White House released an image of a President in suit-coat with no tie signing a paper…… Presidents who sign papers aren’t sick right?
Oddly enough, it appears that the Biden White House borrowed a play book from the 2020 script.. Today as Biden, infected, was in isolation, they Administration ensured that he was working and jovial, calling Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey to delay a Pennsylvania visit. He wore a suit coat with no tie, just as Trump did in 2020..
Even the flag on the lapel to match!
The #POTUS Twitter account ensured that government was still working with the Chief Executive in charge today..
HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
There is some comfort in remembering that we have been here before, not just with Donald Trump.
We reported about Lyndon Johnson’s bout with a pandemic during the Hong Kong Flu in 1968.
During Johnson’s last months in office, the President was hospitalized with the flu at the Bethesda Naval Hospital.
The media then, unlike today’s feeding frenzy during Trump, did not cover the event in the same manner… They called Johnson’s battle with the pandemic a the “sniffles.” Doctors said he should simply rest.
The White House called it a chest cold and low grade fever… Meanwhile, this was the state of affairs for the President with “sniffles:”
Back during the famous Spanish Flu (that we have often written about on this site) another United States President would acquire a pandemic. Woodrow Wilson began to feel ill on April 3, 1919. He got a fever, was unable to move, and went to bed.
He had contracted the Spanish flu, so bad that the President’s physician wrote confidentially to the White House, and it had made Wilson “violently sick.”
Wilson was in Paris for the treaty negotiations following the end of the First World War. It was at this even that he became ill. At that very decisive moment in global history.
Wilson recovered from the influenza, but suffered a severe stroke six months later, and was incapacitated through the remainder of his Presidency.. Some speculate that the Spanish Flu led to his death due to a body ravaged by that virulent pandemic.
But Wilson’s name is uniquely absent from virtually all historic stories about the Spanish Flu. He did not address it in public at all, nothing. Never. He had no time for the pandemic that was destroying the lives of so many around the United States–and they were having mask debates and school closings just like today. Instead he focused on the war.. and finally his unspoken words came back to harm his gravely..
And some other honorable mentions in history:
Dwight Eisinhower had heart issues and a heart attack. The nation at that time rallied around the guy they liked– Ike.
William Henry Harrison was only 32 days into his term as the ninth president of the United States when he became the first president to die in office. People blame his 2 hour long Inauguration Speech as to how he contracted either Typhoid fever or pneumonia.
Zachary Taylor died just 16 months after being sworn in as the 12th president of the United States. On July 4, 1950, Taylor had attended Fourth of July festivities on a scorching day in Washington, D.C., then returned to the White House where he ate cherries and drank iced milk and water. That night, he fell ill with stomach cramps that were diagnosed as cholera.
In 1923, Warren Harding died of a heart attack.
In 1945, Franklin Roosevelt died of a stroke..
We have been through worse.
Presidents, in the end, are only human. We all are..
