Just a couple weeks ago we all saw the POTUS being released from hospital and returned by helicopter to the White House. He’s supposed to have had Covid-19 symptoms. D’you think it was the virus? A lotta folks do, they feel really sorry for him and so proud that he is still battling on to get re-elected in a week’s time, even while suffering from a deadly infection. He is, without doubt, their absolute bestie. 

I’m pretty open minded about it all. Sure, he could have had symptoms, I’ve had symptoms, my friends have had symptoms, the folks in the next street have had symptoms. We all did what any sensible person would do. We stayed home and kept away from other folks. Even if we’d wanted to make a fuss and find out for sure, it would have been difficult. Tests are hard to come by. The general advice from the Covid-19 helpline is to self-isolate for fourteen days; by then it should be pretty obvious if you’re okay or not okay. So that’s how it works, in the UK and, I guess, other places, too.

But wouldn’t it be great if you had a few potential symptoms and you could get taken to the hospital or clinic, chauffeur driven, and given an amazing cocktail of drugs, so effective that within days, you were back to full health, without even a fever or a little hoarseness of voice? That would be something.

And then, imagine that you could be collected from the hospital by helicopter and taken straight back home to your folks, and that there would even be snipers on your rooftop, just in case some dangerous person decided to take a pot-shot at you. And, of course, that this would all be live-streamed on television, so the whole world could see how brave, important and self-sacrificing you were. That would be unbelievable. 

But, suppose for a minute, just maybe you didn’t have the virus after all. And that all that hospital fuss and helicopter hullaballoo and assigning snipers and huge publicity and live stream television would have been pointless. Except that maybe the publicity would have got everyone rooting for you. 

But once it turned out you weren’t really sick, wouldn’t somebody be chasing you to pay back all the money wasted on something that wasn’t even for real? Just saying…