COVID-19 not a hoax, C’bean nationals tell Trump
Published:Sunday | October 4, 2020 | 12:14 AMKaryl Walker - Sunday Gleaner Writer
News that United States President Donald Trump has been hospitalised at the Walter Reed Military Medical Center after being diagnosed with COVID-19 has drawn mixed reactions from Caribbean nationals who reside in US.
Trump has repeatedly downplayed the seriousness of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), which has taken more than 200,000 lives and infected over 7.3 million people in the country that he leads.
His cavalier attitude has not sit well with 73-year-old Jamaica-born Agatha Allen, who resides in the state of New Jersey. Allen feels that Trump being diagnosed with the disease is just reward for his flippancy.
The elderly woman has lost a brother and cousin to COVID-19 in the last few months and is very fearful of being infected.
“He called it a hoax and was rarely seen wearing a mask in public. For us who have lost loved ones, it was no hoax. I am not rejoicing that he has fallen victim to a very real virus and threat to human life, but I hope this changes his attitude. I am an American citizen so I cannot deny that he is our president, but he has left a lot to be desired and his illness has not affected my choice of not voting for him this time around,” Allen told The Sunday Gleaner.
BREAKING NEWS
Trump, 74, and his wife Melania both admitted they had the disease on Thursday after news broke of their infection. On November 3, Trump will seek to defend his policies and to ward off the challenge of 77-year-old Joe Biden in the US presidential election.
Trump being COVID-19-positive came as a shock to Devon Bolton, a 45-year-old Jamaican resident of Orlando, Florida, who is a big fan of the US president. Bolton was in a state of limbo when asked his views on Trump’s present medical dilemma.
“This is not good news, as at his age he is in the high risk category. Nonetheless, I will be voting Republican, regardless of the outcome. Since he became president things have been better for me in this country and I have made a better living. I never migrated to America to fight a race war, so his refusal to condemn white supremacy has no effect on me. For me, it’s a simple bread-and-butter issue,” he said.
Bolton was referring to Trump’s “stand back, stand by” statement in his debate with Biden last week. Many believe that the proclamation has further stoked the flames of racial tension in the US and has alienated the president even more from the majority of non-white citizens who see him as encouraging discrimination against them.
TOO MANY HAVE DIED
His open stance against immigration is also another sore issue.
“I am a black man and an immigrant. There is no way I can feel sorry for him. Three people who meant a lot to me passed due to COVID, so I am in no way sympathetic that he has now become a victim of the same virus he ridiculed,” a Trinidadian man, who wished to remain unnamed, said.
“Too many people have died and may still die for someone as influential as that man to have said the things he said. There is no way the people who have sat by and said nothing or even encouraged him in his folly could get me to vote for his philosophy. The fact that he is sick and in hospital will not change my stance.”
Other top officials in Trump’s party have also tested positive for the virus, including his campaign manager Bill Stepien, Kellyanne Conway and his close confidante, Hope Hicks.
On Friday, Trump was said to have been treated with the drug remdesivir while being administered the experimental Regeneron treatment – a cocktail of antiviral drugs that is being tested for bolstering an infected person’s immune system. The treatment is still in its infancy, according to medical reports.
Trump joins a number of world leaders who contracted COVID-19. Among them:
* Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson
* Britain’s Prince Charles
* Russia’s Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin
* Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau
* President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil
* President Juan Orlando Hernandez of Honduras
* Bolivia’s President Jeanine Anez
* President Alejandro Giammattei of Guatemala
* Monaco’s Prince Albert II
* Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan
* So far, COVID-19 has claimed over one million lives and infected more than 34 million people across the globe.