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Trump’s Covid-19 Diagnosis Will Likely Become a Referendum on the Virus Itself
His outcome will impact the American election — but not necessarily how you’d think
I don’t write about politics very often. But I do write about Covid-19 quite a lot — what we know about it scientifically, how people are responding culturally, what the experience is like for me personally and artistically, and much more.
Now, with the news coming out this morning that US President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump have tested positive for Covid-19, politics and the virus are intersecting.
Of course, politics and the virus have always been intersecting. There’s the often bitterly partisan debate around masks, connections between the virus and efforts towards mass surveillance, and the crushing disparities in who gets Covid-19 — and who gets sickest from it. Even an article that I wrote about cats and coronavirus got over 1,600 views and led to people calling me some not-so-nice things on Facebook.