No one ever wants anyone to catch Covid 19. Ever. But when the most powerful person on the planet catches the disease, having minimized the danger of this global pandemic, mishandled the administration of preventative measures, and put an entire population at risk; well, it has the effect of adding a certain measure of irony to the whole proceedings, an irony generated by the man himself. I think of my friends over in the USA and I find myself worrying about them, sending them messages asking them to please be careful, and hoping things resolve themselves sooner rather than later. I’m also pretty sure the president is a lot sicker than he is letting on. The one clue is not just his being hospitalized, or the deployment of complex medicines by world class physicians to help his condition, but particularly the use of steroids to keep him breathing. I had that once when I contracted asthma as a consequence of working in a deeply unpleasant high stress corporate position where I had to run a computer system with little or no support for a couple of years.* The money was great but the job was toxic. I would be taken by ambulance to hospital pretty regularly, particularly at night, gasping for breath, my inhalers useless. Here’s the thing. First you get oxygen after you pass out or are about to. Then they give you steroids to clear out your lungs that are full of this soapy like stuff that makes breathing such a struggle. My point is the medics only give you steroids when you have real problems breathing. Covid and Asthma can’t be compared, but treating breathing problems with steroids means the president might well be in serious trouble. He’s an overweight man in his seventies with a bad diet and a heart condition, and he has already had a couple of mini strokes. The insane irresponsible presidential drive-by stunt outside Walter Reed in the ‘beast‘ might well be a case of ‘the lady doth protest too much‘. He’s not fine, really. How the sleep of reason begets monsters amongst us, both imagined and indeed real.

*Interestingly my asthma cleared up within a year of quitting that toxic job. Truly the mind and the body are one.