President Trump introduced Judge Amy Coney Barrett as his nominee to the Supreme Court at the Rose Garden on Saturday, September 26. Many attendees did not wear masks. Photo: Alex Brandon/AP
Probably sometime during the last week of September – the timeline is unclear as are most things concerning the infection – President Trump became ill with Covid-19. His adviser Hope Hicks tested positive before he did. Since then, at least three dozen people who are close to the president or who attended events at or sponsored by the White House have tested positive for the disease.
The outbreak has grown so vast that it has apparently infected everyone from unnamed federal employees to senior Pentagon leaders. The true number of those who tested positive is unknown absent a running update from the White House, but reporters have tapped sources and otherwise relied on the infected to come forward in order to gain a fuller portrait of the disaster.
The infected people include the following:
First Lady Melania Trump, Trump's youngest son Barron, Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia’s wife Trish Scalia, Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany and members of her staff, Senior Adviser Stephen Miller, former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, two of the president’s military aides, the president’s “body man,” three journalists on the White House beat, Campaign Manager Bill Stepien, and a Coast Guard officer with responsibilities including carrying the “football” containing codes for launching nuclear missiles
(Benjamin Hart and Chas Danner. “Who in President Trump’s Orbit Has Tested Positive for COVID-19?” Intelligencer. October 14, 2020.)
The administration’s response to the outbreak at the White House has shown apathy toward everyday Americans. Beyond endangering the high-profile advisers who work for him, President Trump’s actions have exposed countless others to the coronavirus
The Center For American Progress reported in “The White House Coronavirus Cluster Is a Result of the Trump Administration’s Policies” on October 16, 2020 …
“The Trump administration’s careless behavior during the past few weeks has undercut public health at every turn. As is typical for this administration, it put politics ahead of science. By holding large, indoor, and unmasked events; by announcing positive cases only after pressure from the public; and by refusing to conduct timely, transparent contact tracing, the Trump administration has seemingly done everything in its power to ensure that its coronavirus outbreak spreads. It is past time that the president and his advisers take the pandemic seriously and start leading by example, especially after numbering among the 8 million Americans infected with the coronavirus.”
– Thomas Waldrop, policy analyst for Health Policy at the Center for American Progress, and Emily Gee health economist for Health Policy at the Center
If COVID-19 had a brain, it would want Donald Trump to be president. Almost everything he has done or allowed to be done since January has given the virus space to spread. Is he a superspreader? Some say that it is impossible to link specific cases to him. It doesn’t matter. Because either way, he is the chief executive of a superspreading presidency. Trump's negligence endangers others.
By most accounts, Covid-19 control inside the White House, at Mar-A-Lago, and on the campaign trail has been lax for months. At least 11 members of the Secret Service and Trump’s national security adviser, Robert C. O’Brien, had tested positive before the latest outbreak, according to The New York Times.
(Al Drago. “Robert O'Brien, Trump's National Security Adviser, Has the Virus.” The New York Times. July 27, 2020.)
Mask-wearing at the White House is “up to the individuals,” a White House official told Vox. Even after the diagnoses, White House officials told reporters that mask-wearing would continue to be optional (that guidance was later revised to require staffers wear masks in common areas).
After two White House staffers tested positive for the virus in May, the White House made mask-wearing mandatory – but dropped the requirement by July, leaving mask-wearing up to individuals. Adam K. Raymond also reported in June, the White House also dropped the temperature screening requirement for visitors.
(Adam K. Raymond. “The White House Is Rolling Back Its Coronavirus Safety Protocols.” Intelligencer. June 22, 2020.)
White House staff and the president have also shown carelessness about isolating after being exposed to one another after someone tests positive: Trump knew of Hicks’s test result before he left for a campaign event where he came into contact with 100 people, The New York Times reports.
(Brian Resnick and Julia Belluz. “How the White House became a coronavirus breeding ground.” Vox. Oct 02, 2020.)
Before Trump tested positive, many people who went in and out of the West Wing were not tested for the virus. At times, they had to submit to random testing. But that’s about as good as it gets. “It’s not like everyone’s getting tested every single day,” a White House official tells Vox. In August, the approach left the Atlantic’s Peter Nicholas with the impression that the White House was a “coronavirus breeding ground.”
According to Nicholas …
“A memo to White House staff in May ordered employees to wear masks in the building except when sitting at their desks—a mandate that followed reports of two West Wing employees testing positive for the virus. When I passed by aides at their desks today (August 27), virtually none was wearing a mask. This may be fine in highly controlled environments—such as the NBA’s 'bubble,' which has effectively kept the virus at bay. But when you’re introducing outsiders into the mix, as was the case today, it’s a far riskier proposition.”
(Peter Nicholas. “White House, Petri Dish.” The Atlantic. August 27, 2020.)
UCSF Assistant Professor of Medicine and Infectious Disease Specialist, Dr. Michael Reid, found it baffling the White House Medical Unit denied the Centers for Disease Control – the federal government’s authority in contact tracing – in their offer to help them track down who may have been exposed. This would be the public health's best practice of reaching out to people at risk of acquiring the infectious disease and identifying others who were exposed.
(Brett Murphy and Letitia Stein. “White House rebuffed CDC offer to lead contact tracing investigation of Trump outbreak.” USA TODAY. October 05, 2020.)
“In any normal administration, the CDC case investigators would be all over this,” said Jeremy Konyndyk, a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development, who helped lead the Obama administration’s response to the international Ebola outbreak. “This is why you have the CDC – to investigate clusters like this.”
Dr. Jeffrey Koplan, a former CDC director and 26-year veteran of the agency, said …
“CDC, when left in the hands of its scientists, makes tough decisions and helps implement them, and maybe that's not what the White House wants. They seem to be marching toward a different goal. It’s a petty one and a partisan one. And all of us pay the price.”
President Donald Trump among supporters at an October 13 rally in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. Jeff Swensen/Getty Images
Trump has resumed campaigning, promising to hold a rally nearly every day between now and November 3. While the rallies are all expected to be held outdoors, they have, thus far, not featured social distancing or universal mask wearing.
“All of us pay the price,” indeed. When the chief executive leads a superspreading presidency, his unconscionable lack of responsibility aids the unbridled spread of the infectious, deadly pandemic. Due to Trump and his followers failure to practice simple health directives, innocents contract the illness, and many of these people pay the ultimate cost.
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