The irony of President Donald Trump and his wife Melania testing positive for coronavirus will not be lost on those who have watched aghast as the occupant of the world’s most powerful office has played ducks and drakes with a health crisis over the past eight months. Mr and Mrs Trump will quarantine themselves according to an announcement by the White House, which says they were tested after a close aide, Hope Hicks, was found to be infected.
But there is another strand to this irony. The President’s illness comes in the wake of a study by Cornell University that described him as the biggest spreader of misinformation on the disease. After evaluating 38 million articles in English- language, traditional media between January and May, the Cornell Alliance for Science concluded “that the president of the United States was likely the largest driver of the Covid-19 misinformation ‘infodemic’.”
The study, which covered news reports from the United States, Britain, India, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and other nations, showed that over half a million articles reproduced or amplified misinformation about the epidemic. Topics included various conspiracy theories, suggestions that the virus was a bioweapon unleashed by China, that it was caused by 5G networks and that it was linked to billionaire Bill Gates.
But miracle cures were the most common topic, featuring in nearly 300,000 articles; surveyors found that comments by President Trump caused the sharpest spikes in such fake reports. His comment on the use of disinfectants inside the body caused one spike, while his endorsement of hydroxychloroquine caused another. A coauthor of the survey noted: “One of the more interesting aspects of the data collection process was discovering the staggering amount of misinformation coverage directly linked to the public comments of a small number of individuals.”
Ms Hicks tested positive after travelling with Mr Trump to Cleveland for the first of his debates with Democratic contender Joe Biden and then to Minnesota for a campaign rally. While contact tracing has been completed to ascertain who else she may have infected, it will doubtless prove a daunting task as far as Mr Trump is concerned not the least because he has been less than cautious in public, often seen without a mask.
The second debate is scheduled for 15 October in Miami, but it is uncertain if the President will be out of quarantine by then. What is certain though that is that his affliction will sharpen criticism of his administration’s response to the virus and put further strain on his re-election bid.