Like the scientists working to develop COVID-19 treatments and vaccines, President Trump desperately wants to announce a cure that will signal the beginning of the end of the pandemic that has killed more than 177,000 Americans.
Unlike the scientists, however, the president isn’t content to wait until there is actual proof of a cure to make that announcement.to personally give Americans the good news about a “historic breakthrough” for treating COVID-19 infections that is “safe” and “will save countless lives.” The breakthrough in question? An experimental treatment in which blood plasma from people who have recovered from the coronavirus is injected into those who are sick, thus transferring protective antibodies.
Indeed it seems that even if the plasma therapy is as effective as the president says it will be, it may not be enough to stop the pandemic. On Monday, Hong Kong researchersof someone who’d recovered from COVID-19 becoming infected again. That’s dispiriting because it means that antibody treatments and vaccines may not provide lasting protection against infection.
Trump’s zeal for a COVID-19 cure would be laudable if his motives weren’t so nakedly self-serving and the results so problematic. When Trump decided that hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malarial drug, was a magic cure when paired with a powerful antibiotic, he would not stop talking about its promise, leading one hapless man
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