A Maryland family battled covid-19 at the same time as Trump. It devastated them.

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Marine One landed on the White House lawn just before dusk. As its rotors came to a halt, the helicopter’s door swung open and out stepped Donald Trump.

The president had just spent three days in Walter Reed National Military Medical Center recovering from covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. And in a scene that would be set to dramatic music and tweeted to his 87 million followers, he climbed the steps to a White House balcony, took off his face mask and recorded a video urging the country not to fear the deadly disease.

“Don’t let it dominate you,” he said into a camera on the evening of Oct. 5. “. . . We have the best medical equipment. We have the best medicines. All developed recently. And you’re going to beat it.”

Thirty miles away, Carlton Coates Jr. sat in an Annapolis funeral home, staring at the casket that contained the body of his older sister. Continue reading.