WASHINGTON: Three aides working for US President Donald Trump, vice-president Mike Pence, and first daughter Ivanka Trump have tested positive for the novel coronavirus this week. This has brought the pandemic to within a degree of the center of power in the US and made the White House an unexpected emerging hotspot even as large parts of America is now re-opening for business to very light footfall.
All three principals and their spouses are reported to have tested negative for the virus. The White House has now updated its protocol to include daily tests for everyone entering the complex, though Trump himself is skeptical of the process and has disdained masking and social distancing guidelines outlined by his own administration.
The President himself confirmed the latest breach on Friday, griping about how Pence’s press secretary Katie Miller “tested very good for a long period of time and then today she tested positive…out of the blue” and “this is why the whole concept of tests aren’t necessarily great” – something can happen between two tests. He also dismissed the idea of he or his vice-president quarantining, saying, “All you can do is take precaution and do the best that you can” and arguing, as he done often during the past several says, that America cannot afford to remain shut down for months, let alone years.
The pandemic shut down has decimated American economy, destroying in just two months all the jobs created since the 2008 recession and sending 33 million people into applying for unemployment dole. The US President now firmly believes the time has come to reconcile to the danger of coronavirus flare-ups to rescue the economy from terminal decline.
Earlier in the week, Trump’s White House valet, who is drawn from the US Navy and whose duties including serving or bringing meals and snacks to the President, tested positive for the coronavirus. The breach threw the executive mansion into a tizzy, with one account saying Trump was “lava-level mad” that someone so close to him had tested positive.
Despite the alarm though, Trump and his aides have maintained publicly the White House is a safe place, life has to go on, and America has to re-open for business taking into account there may be flare-ups that will need to be contained.
“This is going to go away without a vaccine… we are not going to see it again after a period of time… may be there will be flareups or maybe not, but eventually it will be gone,” Trump said on Friday as shopping malls and stores across the country began to re-open amid new social distancing norms.
The President, the vice-president and their aides are being pilloried though for not setting an example and following the administration’s own guidelines about wearing masks and social distancing. Throughout the nearly eight weeks of pandemic alarm, Trump and Pence have disdained masks and mingled freely with people, often in close proximity (including at briefings), implicitly encouraging pandemic denialists in their base to do the same.
On Thursday, Katie Miller, who is also the spokesperson of the coronavirus task force and happens to be married to Trump aide Stephen Miller, was seen without a mask in the White House complex chatting with journalists, all of whom were masked. On Friday, Trump attended a World War II veterans event in Washington to mark the 75th anniversary of the Allied victory in Europe – without wearing a mask. Neither did his Defense Secretary Mike Esper or his Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany.
On Saturday, the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration Stephen Hahn told his staff that he would self-quarantine for 14 days after he came into contact with a coronavirus positive person, believed to be Katie Miller.
Trump's obvious disdain for protocols that others are being asked to observe have served to fuel distrust in his base for experts who they say destroyed the US and global economy with undue alarmism. Right wing blogs are now dredging up data showing overall deaths in the US during the first four months of the year 2020 was no very different from the toll in the first four months of the previous four years, to argue that the coronavirus pandemic was overstated.
All three principals and their spouses are reported to have tested negative for the virus. The White House has now updated its protocol to include daily tests for everyone entering the complex, though Trump himself is skeptical of the process and has disdained masking and social distancing guidelines outlined by his own administration.
The President himself confirmed the latest breach on Friday, griping about how Pence’s press secretary Katie Miller “tested very good for a long period of time and then today she tested positive…out of the blue” and “this is why the whole concept of tests aren’t necessarily great” – something can happen between two tests. He also dismissed the idea of he or his vice-president quarantining, saying, “All you can do is take precaution and do the best that you can” and arguing, as he done often during the past several says, that America cannot afford to remain shut down for months, let alone years.
The pandemic shut down has decimated American economy, destroying in just two months all the jobs created since the 2008 recession and sending 33 million people into applying for unemployment dole. The US President now firmly believes the time has come to reconcile to the danger of coronavirus flare-ups to rescue the economy from terminal decline.
Earlier in the week, Trump’s White House valet, who is drawn from the US Navy and whose duties including serving or bringing meals and snacks to the President, tested positive for the coronavirus. The breach threw the executive mansion into a tizzy, with one account saying Trump was “lava-level mad” that someone so close to him had tested positive.
Despite the alarm though, Trump and his aides have maintained publicly the White House is a safe place, life has to go on, and America has to re-open for business taking into account there may be flare-ups that will need to be contained.
“This is going to go away without a vaccine… we are not going to see it again after a period of time… may be there will be flareups or maybe not, but eventually it will be gone,” Trump said on Friday as shopping malls and stores across the country began to re-open amid new social distancing norms.
The President, the vice-president and their aides are being pilloried though for not setting an example and following the administration’s own guidelines about wearing masks and social distancing. Throughout the nearly eight weeks of pandemic alarm, Trump and Pence have disdained masks and mingled freely with people, often in close proximity (including at briefings), implicitly encouraging pandemic denialists in their base to do the same.
On Thursday, Katie Miller, who is also the spokesperson of the coronavirus task force and happens to be married to Trump aide Stephen Miller, was seen without a mask in the White House complex chatting with journalists, all of whom were masked. On Friday, Trump attended a World War II veterans event in Washington to mark the 75th anniversary of the Allied victory in Europe – without wearing a mask. Neither did his Defense Secretary Mike Esper or his Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany.
On Saturday, the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration Stephen Hahn told his staff that he would self-quarantine for 14 days after he came into contact with a coronavirus positive person, believed to be Katie Miller.
Trump's obvious disdain for protocols that others are being asked to observe have served to fuel distrust in his base for experts who they say destroyed the US and global economy with undue alarmism. Right wing blogs are now dredging up data showing overall deaths in the US during the first four months of the year 2020 was no very different from the toll in the first four months of the previous four years, to argue that the coronavirus pandemic was overstated.
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