He himself said something to the effect of he could literally feel the progressive part of him leave his body after his stroke, so it seems a lot like brain damage removes your empathy or makes you a greedy war mongering asshole.
What we knew and how knowledgeable the general public was about it was a wide gap though, even as a child in the 90s I saw myself that people still had misconceptions about how it was transmitted. Someone in a position of power showing it to be safe to interact with people who had the infection was still a pretty big deal at the time.
To be fair this one is from the world socialist news website, not exactly MSNBC or whatever, so the language makes total sense considering the source. I wish larger news orgs would report more accurately about what’s going on like this though.
Sylvie (left, named her after having just finished Loki season one) and Molly (Cobb, For All Mankind)