Olga Khazan

Shortly after returning to the White House last night, Donald Trump tweeted out a triumphant video in which he urges Americans not to let the coronavirus “dominate your life,” because “we have the best medicines in the world.”That was true of Trump’s stay at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, during which doctors threw the kitchen sink of COVID-19 medicines at him while he relaxed, knowing his bills would be covered.

At 8 a.m. Pacific time last Wednesday, I joined David Anderson’s 12th-grade government class at Live Oak High by clicking on a Zoom link.Because California suffered a surge in coronavirus cases this summer, students in Live Oak, a town about 50 miles north of Sacramento, will be learning virtually for the foreseeable future. Both Anderson and his students seemed nervous about how it would go.