Perspectives: Costly Mistakes Of Chiding Mask-Wearing, Feeling Invincible

The Wall Street Journal: The Trump Coronavirus Spread
White House chief of staff Mark Meadows started Friday by briefing reporters with his face uncovered. He ended it wearing an N95 mask while escorting President Trump to the hospital. It was a jarring image to finish a startling day, as it became apparent that the White House was at the center of a Covid-19 outbreak that could run through America’s political class. All should hope and pray for a quick recovery for the president, his wife and the staffers, elected officials, journalists and others who seem to have been victims of a spreader event. But it didn’t have to happen. Mr. Trump and his team aren’t passive victims of bad luck and an aggressive virus. For months, some of them condoned nonchalance about the virus, mocking precautions such as wearing masks as marks of weakness and dismissing public-health concerns as overwrought. (Scott Gottlieb and Yuval Levin, 10/4)

The New York Times: What Donald Trump Can Learn From Boris Johnson
America, we’ve been here before you. We know what it is like to have a country’s leader downplay the virus, ignore safety measures inside their work space, assume health restrictions are for the little people, and then become ill. We know what it’s like to be pitched into fearful political uncertainties; who’s making the decisions in a crisis, and what are the consequences for us if a leader is incapacitated? President Trump could have drawn some lessons in caution from Boris Johnson’s hospitalization this spring. Instead we have history repeating itself, on a short-circuiting loop, but in both these cases, far too grimly to be described as farce. (Jenni Russell, 10/4)

The Washington Post: Trump Claims That He Had No Choice But To Risk His Own Health. Americans Disagree. 
The choice Trump presents here is as bizarre as his conclusion. It is not the case that one must either remain in a windowless room or necessarily contract the novel coronavirus — as he has. One can use social distancing and mask-wearing — as he hasn’t — in an effort to drastically limit the risk posed by the virus. The idea that the proper way to confront the pandemic is for the president to expose himself to it is like saying that Franklin D. Roosevelt should have taken on Adolf Hitler by airdropping into Dresden. FDR managed to fight World War II while not drastically increasing his chances of being shot by a Nazi. More than 7 in 10 Americans hold a similar position. Asked by pollsters from Ipsos working with ABC News, the vast majority said both that Trump hadn’t taken the risk of contracting the virus seriously enough and that he hadn’t taken the appropriate personal protections necessary to avoid becoming sick. (Philip Bump, 10/4)

The New York Times: Reality Bursts The Trumpworld Bubble
Fate leads the willing, Seneca said, while the unwilling get dragged. For his entire life, Donald Trump has stayed one step ahead of disaster, plying his gift for holding reality at bay. He conjured his own threadbare reality, about success, about virility, about imbroglios with women, even about the height of Trump Tower. As president, he has created a bubble within his bubble, keeping out science and anything that made him look bad. He has played a dangerous game of alchemizing wishes to facts, pretending that he was a strong leader, pretending that the virus will magically disappear and that it “affects virtually nobody,’’ pretending that we don’t have to wear masks, pretending that dicey remedies could work, pretending that the vaccine is right around the corner. Now, in a moment that feels biblical, the implacable virus has come to his door. (Maureen Dowd, 10/3)

The Wall Street Journal: Trump’s Positive Covid Test
America, or at least the non-Twitter part of it, is wishing President Trump and his wife Melania a speedy recovery after their positive tests for Covid-19. The good news is that, even in the worst medical case, the United States has the constitutional measures in place to assure continuity of governance. This may even be an instructive moment for the American people. The media are professing shock that Mr. Trump is infected, but it really isn’t all that surprising. He’s running a government and running for re-election. This requires by necessity contact with numerous people, and it’s simply not realistic to think he can do his job and not come into contact with infected individuals who might be asymptomatic. This underscores the pernicious nature of the virus, and it shows how the supposed fail-safe of more testing is far from foolproof. (10/2)

The Washington Post: Reality Smacks Trumpworld, But The Bubble Remains
To the annals of footage taken just before disaster — the Hindenburg approaching its docking mast, John F. Kennedy’s motorcade winding through Dealey Plaza — we can now add video of the Rose Garden introduction for Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett. Dignitaries including Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), Kellyanne Conway and first lady Melania Trump glad-hand and hug, with smiles all too visible in the absence of masks. A week later, we know that those three, plus several other key White House and campaign officials, reporters and, of course, the president himself have all tested positive for the novel coronavirus. (James Downie, 10/4)