TIME

Treating Trump

WHEN U.S. PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP REVEALED ON OCT. 2 that he was positive for COVID-19, he became just the third world leader, after U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, known to be affected by the virus that has infected more than 35 million people and killed more than a million worldwide. Over the next few days, more than a dozen of his close staff and campaign members also tested positive. Public-health experts who have been criticizing Trump and his Administration’s consistent downplaying of the pandemic and the importance of social distancing and mask wearing quickly pivoted to questioning the specialized treatment he received that seemed to veer from the standard of care that most patients receive.

In each of the three days following Trump’s announcement that he’d tested positive, his doctors added a new major therapy. On

You’re reading a preview, subscribe to read more.

More from TIME

TIME9 min read
Artists
She moves with a lightness in a heavy world—bold, playful, and self-aware. She is thoughtfully outspoken for the oppressed and displaced. She founded an influential editorial platform, Service95, to cover cultural topics and address humanitarian conc
TIME6 min read
The Fog Of War
When the author Viet Thanh Nguyen was growing up in California as a refugee from the Vietnam War, depictions of that conflict were omnipresent in American culture. Platoon, Apocalypse Now, Full Metal Jacket, and many other films portrayed American he
TIME3 min readInternational Relations
John Kerry
Sitting in a taxi in Munich in February, stuck in traffic, John Kerry wrestled with an idea. The U.S. climate envoy was in southern Germany to attend an annual security conference, spending his days pushing world leaders to work together to fight glo

Related Books & Audiobooks