How did President Trump survive corona? (Satire)

Even in a world where nothing is what it seems, it appears established that President Trump has caught The Bug. Granted that the hopelessly inadequate tests cause many false positives, it is unlikely that the test would reliably give a false positive result for half his entourage. So it seems established that The Donald is infected and alive, and I am sure that whether you are a proud “Deplorable” or a “Never-Trumper”, you are dying to find out how he managed to survive. How can an old geezer who has been labeled borderline obese by our oh-so-reliable media beat a virus that keeps the rest of us in lockdown?

Time to clear up some misunderstandings. At age 74, the risks are undoubtedly higher than at age 47, but based on data presented by Dr. Fauci himself, I would say the probability of you biting the bullet doesn’t exactly sky rocket until you are well into your 80s. I suspect that once you adjust for co-morbidities — in other words, the many ailments that often come with old age — age itself is no longer a material determinant of corona outcomes.

Moreover, you can’t really tell whether someone is overweight simply by crunching their height and weight data into a spreadsheet. This is the day and age of personalized medicine (or at least it was until recently, when we were still diagnosing cancer patients and treating them with molecularly targeted therapy, before all healthcare resources got deployed to dubious mass vaccinations). And I am sure we have all woken up to the fact that spreadsheet gimmickry is an arcane science that doesn’t even guarantee full capture of all corona cases. (If you ever wondered how spreadsheet gimmickry produces $50bn valuations for companies that produce nothing and urgently require a bail out, give me a shout and I will gladly explain). The point is: you need to take into account a person’s build. You see, The Donald is not actually fat; let’s just say that he was built the German way (I am allowed to say this, as I grew up a stone’s throw away from where his ancestors are from). His German heritage may indeed help him to beat Covid; he’s clearly proud of it (“great stuff!”) and any engineer will tell you that German brands last the longest (incidentally, that’s why everyone buys German, and at any price — nothing to do with a weak Euro making exports cheap).

More importantly, a person’s prognosis does not just depend on superficial characteristics. Tenacity, spirit, the will to live may all be far more decisive factors. Being a fighter (or simply too darn stubborn to let anything interfere with your plans — it boils down to the same thing) boosts your immune system (as does not wearing mask, by the way). I firmly believe that anyone cowering at home in fear, watching the news 24/7 is at higher risk of dying than the people who actually come in contact with the virus while they’re out having fun. And where could you possibly have more fun than on the campaign trail?!? (“Debate me if you dare!”)

So in essence, President Trump is probably much more resilient than the media give him credit for. But there may be more to it. I appreciate that I am broaching a very sensitive and uncomfortable subject, but I need to include it here for completeness. Could it be that possibly maybe potentially the virus is nowhere near as lethal as we have been made to believe? Could it even be safe for us ordinary mortals to occasionally leave our bunkers? Let’s not go there, because the ramifications are truly terrifying. If Covid were just an over-hyped flu, then the lockdowns would just be a heinous crime against humanity, and all the bankruptcies, suicides and mass unemployment could no longer conveniently be dismissed as collateral damage from saving mankind from extinction. Sadly, we don’t have enough prison spaces for all the perpetrators of human rights violations, and we can’t rent extra space in the Gulag because the Treasury coffers are empty. So let’s just leave it that the POTUS got extraordinarily lucky and/or benefitted from “amazing” treatment with — drumrolls! — steroids.

I am telling you all of this because I promised to explain why the dead man is still walking. I would like to stress that I am in no way implying that he necessarily did the right thing by not dying. People would have taken the virus much more seriously after his funeral. Imagine a contrite POTUS on his deathbed, apologizing for underestimating the virus, imploring the American people (and if he were feeling truly charitable, maybe even the Chinese people) to wear masks whenever they are not self-isolating and to self-isolate whenever they’re not busy with work, childcare, errands or golfing. This is every journalist’s wet dream! They all gave up promising careers as insta-influencers, rioters and Chief Inclusion Officers in order to be able to one day broadcast the President’s last wish. And now The Donald is mocking them by resuming his campaign while the mainstream media was in the process of drafting his obituary. Rude!