When a president gets sick

President William Henry Harrison died, famously, after giving the longest inauguration speech in history. On a bitterly cold winter day in 1841, Harrison spoke for an hour and 45 minutes — to prove what a man he was. Then he fell ill with pneumonia and died after just 32 days in office. He tried not to show weakness. He perished.

The lesson for Trump, who has just tested positive for coronavirus, is clear — don’t try to tough it out. Viral infections aren’t impressed by machismo. He should put his re-election efforts aside, as much as is humanely possible, rest, and recover.

The decision to helicopter him to Walter Reed hospital in Bethesda last night out of ‘abundance of caution’, as press secretary Kayleigh McEnany called it, was therefore sensible — though he hasn’t yet officially abandoned any duties.