​Iranian officials, who are typically quick to react to bombshell stories, appear to have chosen cautious silence in the immediate raucous debates triggered by the announcement that US President Donald Trump had tested positive for the novel coronavirus. Unsurprisingly, the officials have also avoided sending any warm thoughts or prayers for the leader of the country they have considered Iran's number-one enemy for four decades.

However, Iranian media outlets, analysts and members of the public have reacted in messages largely about Trump's “lesson” and how the virus affects those who underestimate it. “No one, absolutely no one, could be immune from COVID’s claws,” read an article from the conservative state-funded news agency Young Journalists Club. 

London-based Reformist and former Culture Minister Ataollah Mohajerani offered a chronology of Trump's actions before catching the virus, from his effort “to reduce the pandemic to the level of a ploy by Democrats” to his “ridicule” for the mask worn by his rival Joe Biden.

Veteran Iranian journalist Ahmad Zeidabadi wrote, “Perhaps the quarantine period will give him enough time to come to recognize the fact that life is too fragile and not worth all the hue and cry … and one’s health can be simply threatened with a microscopic virus. This could make him reconsider his behavior.”