WHILE political attention in Australia this week has been focused on the federal budget, US President Donald Trump has appalled all but his rusted-on supporters with a childish, and ultimately dangerous, performance in brushing off his COVID-19 infection as if it was nothing more than a common cold.
For everyone else in the modern world, a positive coronavirus test means at least 14 days in isolation.
But not for Mr Trump.
Perhaps only a week into his infection, Mr Trump has outraged medical experts around the world by being driven past his gathered supporters, risking the health of his driver and other staff involved in the exercise.
All were wearing masks, but even the best masks only minimise, rather than eliminate, the possibility of catching or transmitting the disease.
And now Mr Trump has insisted on returning to work, as if to show he is some sort of strong man who can stare down the virus as if it's an adversary on the other side of a bargaining table.
His Democrat opponent, Joe Biden, has so far refrained from criticising Mr Trump's cavalier attitude towards the virus.
It is a good bet that if the shoe was on the other foot, Mr Trump would not have extended him the same courtesy.
If Mr Biden was the one who had caught the virus, and was appearing to make a remarkable recovery, it is almost certain that Mr Trump would at least suggest - if not outright accuse - that he had faked his exposure.
What's worse, is that Mr Trump's continued dismissal of anything he doesn't like as "fake news" means that public trust in an already polarised political system is at rock bottom.
Despite America's status as the nominal "leader of the free world", it has failed, absolutely, as a nation, to gain control of the virus.
At a time when many Western nations have at least damped down their COVID-19 numbers, the US is experiencing a third peak in infection rates.
All up, it has recorded 21 per cent of the world's confirmed cases, and 20 per cent of the deaths.
And now it has a president who has emerged from Walter Reid medical centre - receiving a level of care that most of his supporters would never see - telling them: "Don't let it dominate you. Don't be afraid of it."
A message unmistakably at odds with reality.
And a message not to follow.
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