# Trump and Melania test positive for COVID-19 **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [October 2, 2020, 5:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-and-melania-test-positive-for-covid-19/922010 "2020-10-02T05:07:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2020, 10:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-and-melania-test-positive-for-covid-19/922010/101 "2020-10-02T10:50:37Z")
> [@FlikTheBlue](#): > > Regarding how Biden should approach this, I think going positive (for his campaign, not for COVID-19) is the way to go. Wish Trump and Melania well and focus on the positive aspects of his campaign until Trump recovers. This. Biden has to take the high road, but NOT suspend campaigning. Because this: > [@wolfpup](#): > > The real question here is how it will affect his election prospects and how it will affect the two remaining debates. You can damn well bet that his strategists are working on ways to use this to turn around his failing campaign and disastrous debate performance. I don’t see how, but when you’re crashing and burning, any major change is potentially an improvement. I just see it as a pure liability that highlights how stupid, careless, and uninformed his entire handling of this pandemic has been, on both a personal and national policy level. Trump and his people have stepped in it bigly. Just let them stomp around and get the shit all over themselves. Biden needs to stand back and not let any of it splash on him. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2020, 10:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-and-melania-test-positive-for-covid-19/922010/102 "2020-10-02T10:52:19Z")
I don’t wish Hope Hicks any ill. I can’t say the same thing about the first family. It’d suit me fine if Don the Con is reduced to a quivering pile of jelly. My only wish from the powers that be is that Biden did not contract it. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2020, 11:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-and-melania-test-positive-for-covid-19/922010/103 "2020-10-02T11:02:07Z")
> [@China\_Guy](#): > > What if this is kabuki and Trump’s WWF October surprise? Hope Hicks doesn’t really have covid and neither does trumpy. The universe is vast and unknowable. I don’t know, for example, the odds that there is, birthed around a distant star, a race of shapeshifting lizard-people; nor do I know the odds that if there are lizard people, they’re capable of traveling the eerie distance from their planet to ours. I cannot begin to calculate the odds that they would be motivated to visit our world and impersonate the leader of the most powerful nation of hyoomans, in order to make a false claim about his susceptibility to disease. I can, however, calculate the odds that Trump, having spent his whole life pretending to be strong when he was actually weak, has suddenly agreed to pretend he’s weak when he’s actually strong. Those odds? WAY lower than the lizard-person hypothesis. ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2020, 11:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-and-melania-test-positive-for-covid-19/922010/104 "2020-10-02T11:06:32Z")
Well, as his doctor said, way back in 2016, he [tests positive for everything](https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-health-doctor-490836). ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2020, 11:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-and-melania-test-positive-for-covid-19/922010/105 "2020-10-02T11:10:13Z")
Here’s the thing: an infected person tends to spread it either not all (most of them) or extremely efficiently (a superspreader). If three people positive odds are good several more in that circle are infected. Quite a few in significantly high risk groups. And who likely exposed others already who don’t bother to mask. This may get really interesting. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2020, 11:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-and-melania-test-positive-for-covid-19/922010/106 "2020-10-02T11:10:56Z")
To all those saying that he’ll have to go into quarantine, says who? If he says “It doesn’t matter because it’s all the Democrats’ fault, and it doesn’t exist anyway, and by the way, Mar a lardo is beautiful this time of year, great golf courses, and did you know that I invented golf? Everyone’s saying it. And so anyway, I don’t need to go into quarantine”, what can anyone do to force him to quarantine? ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2020, 11:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-and-melania-test-positive-for-covid-19/922010/107 "2020-10-02T11:17:38Z")
Who else has Hicks had close contact with other than on Air Force One? ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2020, 11:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-and-melania-test-positive-for-covid-19/922010/108 "2020-10-02T11:17:50Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > To all those saying that he’ll have to go into quarantine, says who? Some news stories say the WH has already announced the cancellation of all public events. Can’t find more details. ---
**Author:** ![Heffalump\_and\_Roo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heffalump_and_roo/32/7691_2.png) [@Heffalump\_and\_Roo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Heffalump_and_Roo)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2020, 11:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-and-melania-test-positive-for-covid-19/922010/109 "2020-10-02T11:18:48Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > To all those saying that he’ll have to go into quarantine, says who? Trump said it in [his twee](https://www.nytimes.com/live/2020/10/01/world/covid-19-coronavirus)t. > [@](#): > > “Tonight, [@FLOTUS](https://twitter.com/FLOTUS/) and I tested positive for COVID-19,” Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter. “We will begin our quarantine and recovery process immediately. We will get through this TOGETHER!” ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2020, 11:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-and-melania-test-positive-for-covid-19/922010/110 "2020-10-02T11:19:41Z")
> [@ThelmaLou](#): > > Biden has to take the high road, but NOT suspend campaigning. Absolutely. Biden needs to respectfully send “thoughts and prayers”, and carry on. This is not about “what if the tables were turned?”. Sure, we know the answer. If it was Biden who had COVID, the orange peril would be hopping around gleefully, and while forced by protocol to express some superficial sympathy, would use all possible dog-whistle techniques to imply that “Sleepy Joe” was so weak and sickly that he might not even survive into November. Because that’s just the kind of guy that Trump is, and always has been. But that’s not what this is about. Biden has to carry on for the same reason that he went into this campaign in the first place: because the country desperately needs him. Because the country needs to be saved from the lawless criminal gang that is corrupting its very core. This election is not about differences in ideology, it’s about an existential threat to America. ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2020, 11:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-and-melania-test-positive-for-covid-19/922010/111 "2020-10-02T11:20:11Z")
Has Trump tried drinking bleach yet? ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2020, 11:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-and-melania-test-positive-for-covid-19/922010/112 "2020-10-02T11:21:03Z")
Thoughts & Prayers!!! WooHoooooooo! ---
**Author:** ![bobot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bobot/32/21622_2.png) [@bobot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobot)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2020, 11:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-and-melania-test-positive-for-covid-19/922010/113 "2020-10-02T11:23:13Z")
Well. Now here’s some fist-thing-in-the-morning news. I haven’t yet read the thread, but I would like to see a few positive tests in a row in order to believe they’re positive. And if they are, and it’s a mild case, it’s just going to be fodder for his marks that there’s nothing to fear here. As Bob Dylan sang: Even the President of the United States sometimes must have to stand naked. ---
**Author:** ![Heffalump\_and\_Roo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heffalump_and_roo/32/7691_2.png) [@Heffalump\_and\_Roo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Heffalump_and_Roo)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2020, 11:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-and-melania-test-positive-for-covid-19/922010/114 "2020-10-02T11:23:56Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > Who else has Hicks had close contact with other than on Air Force One? from post 94 by **Wrenching\_Spanners**. Not a list of people Hope Hicks had contact with but a list of people Trump had contact with. > [@Trump and Melania test positive for COVID-19](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-and-melania-test-positive-for-covid-19/922010/94): > > List of people who’ve been in contact with Trump from the BBC: On Monday, he held a news briefing - giving an update on his administration’s coronavirus testing strategy - in the White House Rose Garden which was attended by Vice-President Mike Pence, Health Secretary Alex Azar and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos among others. At the high-profile TV debate in Cleveland on Tuesday, the president not only shared a stage with his Democrat rival Joe Biden but he was also joined by his most senior… ---
**Author:** ![SanVito](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sanvito/32/2805_2.png) [@SanVito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanVito)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2020, 11:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-and-melania-test-positive-for-covid-19/922010/115 "2020-10-02T11:24:28Z")
> [@Peter\_Morris](#): > > Thanks. Never heard of her. You should follow her on Twitter. Restores faith that not the entire governing classes have gone completely mad. (and I’m British too). ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2020, 11:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-and-melania-test-positive-for-covid-19/922010/116 "2020-10-02T11:25:37Z")
If this is Trump’s way of dropping out of the race while trying to save face, then let him. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2020, 11:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-and-melania-test-positive-for-covid-19/922010/117 "2020-10-02T11:28:15Z")
> [@snfaulkner](#): > > I wish trump will recover so that he can rot in jail. This. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2020, 11:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-and-melania-test-positive-for-covid-19/922010/118 "2020-10-02T11:29:21Z")
I read that the lecterns at the debate were only 3 meters apart. That’s worrying - and so foolish, in retrospect. ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2020, 11:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-and-melania-test-positive-for-covid-19/922010/119 "2020-10-02T11:29:39Z")
> [@friedo](#): > > That’s because she’s a backbencher with essentially no power except riling up elderly covidiots who think she’s the next Fidel Castro. I don’t think it’s exactly fair to call her a back bencher. She’s a freshman Representative, elected 2 years ago, and nobody gets to wield real power in the House the instant you get elected. The Trumpers have been bleating about her since before she was sworn in, because I guess, she’s young, female, not-white, outspoken, and liberal. ---
**Author:** ![lobotomyboy63](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobotomyboy63/32/2900_2.png) [@lobotomyboy63](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lobotomyboy63)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2020, 11:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-and-melania-test-positive-for-covid-19/922010/120 "2020-10-02T11:30:24Z")
> [@CairoCarol](#): > > However, Trump has sown so much discord and uncertainty that I wouldn’t put it past his administration to pretend he had the virus when he actually didn’t, in order to demonstrate that (a) he’s very strong; and (b) the severity of the virus is overblown, we’ll just work on that “herd mentality” and get on with life. This. I didn’t hear about the situation until 30 minutes ago. Butter my butt and call me a biscuit! My first thought was how he claimed to have taken hydroxychloroquine. Says who? And even if a doctor got up there and “verified” it, Trump has so much sway…well, you know, the House impeached but the Senate wouldn’t pull the trigger. You know he could get a doctor to back him up…and when you’re dealing with a pathological liar (20K as of July 13), you can’t ever drop your guard and assume what they’re saying is true. What effect will the assertion cause if people believe it? What’s the goal? But if it is true, oh the irony! I’m waiting for him to say, “I have conditions that make me vulnerable.” No you don’t, Mr. President, we remember that excellent bill of health the doctor gave you. You’ll be fine! > **[Doctor: Trump Dictated Letter Attesting To His 'Extraordinary' Health](https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/05/02/607638733/doctor-trump-dictated-letter-attesting-to-his-extraordinary-health)** > > Dr. Harold Bornstein, who released a letter in 2015 describing Donald Trump's health in glowing terms, now tells CNN that the then-candidate dictated the whole thing. Will deliveries of aquarium cleaner, Clorox, UV lights, etc. start showing up at the White House? “I have a good feeling about it,” and “What have you got to lose?” and “I’m sure it will go away by…the election” etc. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-and-melania-test-positive-for-covid-19/922010.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-and-melania-test-positive-for-covid-19/922010.md?page=7)