How Trump’s Bout with COVID-19 Compares to Woodrow Wilson’s Encounter with the 1918 Flu

The effects of disease on a president’s mind can be dangerous.

Woodrow Wilson was President during the 1918 flu pandemic, commonly known as the “Spanish flu” due to World War I censors scrubbing mention of the flu from newspapers to keep up morale, while Spain — neutral in the war — was free to report on it, making it incorrectly seem like Spain had been ravaged by the virus worse than anywhere else.

Wilson’s election had been celebrated by white supremacists, and he placed numerous segregationists in his Cabinet, allowed Cabinet members to segregate their departments, and notoriously screened The Birth of a Nation — a film that helped rejuvenate the Ku Klux Klan — as the first film ever screened in the White House.

Though the 1918 flu pandemic killed 675,000 Americans in 15 months — and ultimately 50–100 million people worldwide — Woodrow Wilson offered no leadership of any kind against the virus, his administration never once mentioned it publicly.

And just like today, the president’s cavalier attitude toward the virus resulted in him catching it himself, along with his personal secretary, his oldest daughter, and several Secret Service members. He and his staff downplayed his illness to reporters, saying he’d simply gotten a bad cold from the rain, while in reality, he couldn’t sit up in bed and had a 103-degree fever.

Then, he started blurting out unexpected orders. In delusion, he became convinced he was surrounded by French spies. His staff said he was never the same after his illness. Wilson had wanted the Allies to go easy on Germany in WW1, so he could be successful with his League of Nations project, but the French prime minister and other world leaders wanted to take a tougher stance.

After he was hit with the flu, he was exhausted, his mind was affected, and he couldn’t concentrate. He conceded to the other leaders in his weakened state, and the Treaty of Versailles was signed, which was a settlement that proved to be so harsh to Germans that it provoked a wave of German nationalism that helped lead to the rise of Hitler.

Six months later, Wilson had a stroke that left him partially paralyzed and blind, but his First Lady Edith Wilson hid his condition from the public and secretly acted as President herself. The 25th Amendment wouldn’t be passed for another 50 years, so there weren’t clear rules in place for what to do if the President was incapacitated.

All of that seems worth knowing, especially when you consider the possible long-term cognitive effects of COVID-19. There is increasing evidence that infection frequently leads to brain damage, particularly in patients over the age of 70, sometimes mild, but sometimes quite serious damage that leads to major cognitive impairment — including issues with attention, memory, and executive function, where difficulties arise managing medications and finances, comprehending written materials, and even carrying on conversations.

Our president is 74, and he tested positive for COVID-19 twelve days ago. Doctors have already wondered if steroids could be behind his particularly unhinged recent tweeting. But it’s worth considering the effects of COVID-19 on the brain, and whether the 25th Amendment might need to be employed during this instance of a racist president getting sick from the pandemic he ignored. How hideously history seems to repeat itself.