Covid shows Trump who's the real boss

DURING every presidential election year, television talking-heads speculate about a possible last-minute news event that could have an effect on the outcome of the race to the White House, usually by reversing a certain trend or by enhancing another, aka October Surprise.

Most recently, some have argued that the announcement on Oct 28, 2016, by then-FBI director James Comey to review additional e-mails related to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's use of a private e-mail server may have changed the direction of the presidential race that year. It may have reversed Mrs Clinton's electoral momentum and hurt her chances of beating her Republican adversary, Donald Trump.

In this election year the surprise was delivered in the early morning of Oct 2 by a deadly virus, Covid-19, that attacked one of the candidates, President Trump, not only physically, sending him to the hospital, but also served as a political agent of doom one month before the November election. Even his adversaries wished the president swift recovery. Whether that would include also political recovery is another question.