She did not intend to tell the public.

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, plagued with a persistent cough she blamed on allergies, was diagnosed with pneumonia on Friday.

Clinton’s personal doctor, Lisa Bardack, prescribed antibiotics and rest — standard treatment for pneumonia, an inflammation of the lining of the lungs caused by any of a number of things.

Clinton’s campaign said nothing to the media about the diagnosis or the treatment. By all appearances her presidential campaign was full speed ahead.

Two days later on Sunday morning, Clinton was attending the 15th anniversary 9-11 memorial service at ground zero when she suffered an episode of what later was described as overheating and dehydration. She was seen to stumble — some said she appeared to faint — as she was helped into her van for a quick drive to her daughter Chelsea’s apartment a few blocks away. There she was rehydrated and refreshed.

Only later Sunday, after several hours of speculation about Clinton’s health, did her doctor release a statement about the pneumonia diagnosis.

No wonder. The health rumors have been as persistent as that cough. And the standard treatment — absolute rest — is completely incompatible with the aspirations of a presidential candidate racing around the country trying to see as many constituencies and contributors as possible. This is especially so when the candidate is 68 years old.

According to the WebMD website, bacterial forms of pneumonia tend to be more severe than viral. Let’s assume Clinton has bacterial pneumonia since her doctor said she prescribed antibiotics.

According to WebMD: “In healthy people, pneumonia can be a mild illness that is hardly noticed and clears up in two to three weeks. In older adults ,,, recovery may take six to eight weeks or longer.”

Eight weeks from today is Nov. 7, the day before Election Day.

Clearly, the Clinton campaign was hoping this would go away before anyone noticed. Now that seems impossible.

But even before Sunday’s stumble, could the sickness have been taking a toll? Was Clinton’s judgment clouded when, at a Friday fundraiser, she sparked an uproar by describing half of opponent Donald Trump’s supporters as “a basket of deplorables,” calling them racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic, you name it.”

She added: “And unfortunately, there are people like that and he has lifted them up. He has given voice to their websites that used to only have 11,000 people, now have 11 million. He tweets and retweets offensive, hateful, mean-spirited rhetoric.”

She described the rest of his supporters as people who are looking for change in any form because of economic anxiety and urged her supporters to empathize with them.

That kind of rhetoric won’t win Clinton any new votes, but it helps explain — and galvanize — a negative poll rating of nearly 55 percent.

We have to wonder if it wasn’t the pneumonia talking.

Clinton might have done more for her campaign by releasing a medical statement about the diagnosis on Friday and then taking her doctor’s advice, gone to bed for three or four days and put the pneumonia behind her.

At this point, the electorate can’t make that assumption.