NOT LIKE YOU AND ME

Rudy Giuliani’s COVID Case Shows There’s No Vaccine to Treat the Disease the GOP Has Become

Go maskless. Mingle away. Get COVID. Hey, as long as you’re a wealthy white man who’s a friend of the president, no problemo!

opinion

Trump’s lawyer needs a doctor. If you saw him gallivanting across the country for the past month trying to overturn the election, it should come as no surprise to you that Rudy Giuliani, once revered as “America’s Mayor,” was hospitalized for COVID-19 this week.

Giuliani, a potential one-man superspreader whose recent visit forced the entire Arizona legislature to close up shop, is being treated at Georgetown University Medical Center. For the rich and powerful, there’s always room at the inn. Or hospital. And while we all hope for his speedy recovery, this is the latest sign that a pattern of privilege has emerged. It goes like this: Having tempted fate by refusing to social distance or wear masks, Trump and his team contract the virus. Next, they receive world-class medical treatment. Last, they quickly recover.

It's not a victimless advantage. Their miraculous recovery reinforces the resentment of every hoohaw who won't wear a mask and throws a fit at a bar in Staten Island because last call comes early at 10 p.m. The problem with these quick recoveries is that they demonstrate (to people who are the most susceptible to this message) that COVID-19 isn’t really a big deal.

‘INADVERTENTLY’

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Except, it is a big deal—at least, it is for those of us who aren’t friends with Donald Trump.

Speaking of which, Trump reportedly says Giuliani is “doing well and doesn't have a fever,” which is good news, but makes me wonder: Why would someone with mild (or no) symptoms be admitted into a hospital? Rudy is a 76-year-old cancer survivor, which is part of the answer.

But would your 76-year-old dad be admitted? I’m not sure. What I am sure of is that back in early October, Trump contracted COVID and was flown to Walter Reed, where he received Regeneron’s experimental antibody cocktail, which he later touted as a “cure.” (It wasn’t until Nov. 21 that the FDA authorized this cure for others, and then, only for “emergency use.”)

Next, former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie checked himself into Morristown Medical Center as a “precautionary measure,” and went on to spend seven days in the ICU. Christie was also given access to “remdesivir and an antibody cocktail from Eli Lilly that is still in experimental trials.”

But does any of this top-shelf treatment even matter? In November, HUD Secretary Ben Carson posted on Facebook that he had been “desperately ill” from COVID, until “President Trump... cleared me for the monoclonal antibody therapy that he had previously received.” Carson went on to write that he is “convinced” this special treatment (which, according to the New York Times, was not FDA-approved) “saved my life.”

OK then.

Nobody sane would begrudge a sitting president special treatment, but would you or I (or our loved ones) have also been “cleared” for it? Could you or I flaunt social distancing guidelines, only to “check ourselves” into a medical center—during a time when bed space is an issue—before we feel sick—and start downing experimental cocktails?

If this all sounds swampy to you, you’re not alone. “We’ve ended up with a situation where the politicians who are getting blamed for mismanaging the pandemic have saved themselves a parachute,” Dr. Vinay Prasad, an associate professor of Medicine at the University of California San Francisco, told CNBC last month.

That’s not the only problem. As Dr. Anthony Fauci told STAT News, “We're all glad that the President of the United States did not suffer any significant consequences of it. But… because he is such a visible figure, it amplifies some of that misunderstanding that people have that it's a benign disease and nobody has anything to worry about.”

Deaths are at an all-time high right now. And the irony is that these high-profile recoveries (save for Herman Cain, the sole cautionary tale) do reinforce the notion that COVID is like catching a cold—that it’s a minor inconvenience for the vast majority of us.

It’s the latest lie from a party that has gotten all too accustomed to lying.

Even before his diagnosis, Giuliani was symbolic of a political party that had fallen from grace and was riven with contradictions.

Should America’s rebranded “working-class” party be led by elites who tell the working class not to worry about a deadly virus, while exploiting their access to medicines the working-class can't get?

The Republican Party is sick. It’s contagious. And sadly, nobody is working on a vaccine.

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Matt LewisSenior Columnist

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