Covid: Donald Trump, Margaret Ferrier and co need to set a better example – Angus Robertson

The US Presidential Election campaign is exciting and excruciating in equal measure. Last week’s debate between President Donald Trump and Democrat challenger Joe Biden was both transfixing and unwatchable.

Covid patient Donald Trump waves to supporters outside Walter Reed National Military Medical Center from his hermetically sealed vehicle, an environment conducive to passing on the virus to the other people inside. (Picture: Tony Peltier/AP)

As if that didn’t provide enough excitement for politics junkies, it was quickly overtaken by the news of President Trump’s Covid infection.

Most fair-minded people, including Joe Biden wished the president a speedy recovery. For a while there was actually bipartisan sympathy for the man who has presided over a catastrophic response to the pandemic and set the worst possible personal example, by minimising the risks and allowing election rallies and state events to go ahead without social distancing.

Goodwill has however largely evaporated since the grotesque attention-seeking drive-by outside his hospital.

Imagine putting the lives of his Secret Service bodyguards at risk by forcing them to drive in the same vehicle as President so he could wave at supporters and then return to the hospital.

Dr James Philips, a doctor at the same hospital where the president is being treated tweeted: “That Presidential SUV is not only bulletproof, but hermetically sealed against chemical attack. The risk of Covid-19 transmission inside is as high as it gets outside of medical procedures.”

He went on to say those inside the President's car would now need to quarantine for 14 days.

Public leaders must set a better example, whether President Trump, the MP Margaret Ferrier or Boris Johnson’s key adviser Dominic Cummings.

We now have only four weeks left to see what the American public makes of the developments with President Trump.

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