t is some small comfort that President Trump’s illness shows that not all grace notes have been stamped out of American public life. Some of his most persistent critics made heartfelt statements wishing for his recovery. We, of course, join them in praying for a full and swift recovery.

Obviously, this is a momentous story. The news that Trump had COVID upended the presidential campaign and raised the prospect of a crisis should he die in office.

At this sensitive moment, it is of the utmost importance that the White House convey accurate information about the president’s condition. People tend to doubt official assurances about a sick leader’s health status in the best of circumstances, and the White House had limited credibility to begin with. It is now clear that the initial talk of the president having “mild” symptoms was misleading, and the White House physician Sean Conley compounded the offense in his press briefing Saturday at Walter Reed hospital by dancing around to avoid disclosing that the president had received supplemental oxygen. On Sunday, he admitted that he was trying, as he put it, to give an upbeat assessment to match the president’s positive attitude.

This won’t do. The guy in the white lab coat should simply give the public the facts about the president’s condition and treatment and leave the spin to the usual suspects. Meanwhile, the president needs to make it clear that he wants his doctors to be transparent, and waive HIPAA and other doctor-patient protections so they can do so.