President Donald Trump has tested positive for the coronavirus.
Washington, United States:
Offices are crowded, visitors are constant, and the boss doesn’t like people wearing masks: welcome to the White House where President Donald Trump has tested positive for coronavirus.
The revelation in the early hours of Friday that Trump and his wife Melania were both positive sent staff on a frantic cycle of contact tracing and emergency testing.
It is not an easy task.
Crowds and travels
Avoid large groups, stay masked and socially distant? Not for this president.
Trump has staged a growing number of re-election rallies with thousands in a hurry and, in most cases, not covering their faces.
The last was in Minnesota on Wednesday, where he was accompanied by his close assistant Hope Hicks, who was revealed Thursday to have tested positive.
Another scheduled for Florida on Friday has been canceled.
Trump was scheduled to fly to a rally in Wisconsin, a state with increasing infections, on Saturday. Next week it was to be a long-distance swing across the west, including Arizona.
Many of these events take place outside, but last week Trump met hundreds of supporters inside in Florida and Georgia.
He also held a large rally in the White House rose garden last Saturday to announce Amy Coney Barrett as a candidate for the Supreme Court.
The White House said on Friday it had since tested negative.
Restricted spaces
The White House is less a typical government office building than a stately home converted for government use, with warrens of small offices and hallways.
Even the famous Oval Office quickly gets cramped, while to staff, “office” often means little more than a desk crammed into an alcove.
Trump’s powerful son-in-law, Jared Kushner, for example, works in one of the smaller offices. But as he told Time magazine, it’s “in a good location” – right next to the president’s private dining room, a favorite hangout for Trump.
Nearly 400 people work in the White House, apart from journalists, who work in an even smaller press wing. And while reporters adhere strictly to mask guidelines, few staff members do.
Trump has often mocked the masks, but says he’s safe due to frequent testing.
The White House uses the Abbott rapid test, which can give results in minutes, but testing protocols are not waterproof.
For example, some journalists are routinely tested, while others who have not yet been tested still come a few feet from Trump when he answers questions through his Marine One helicopter.
Even Trump’s testing schedule is unclear.
In July, his spokesperson Kayleigh McEnany said he had been tested “several times a day”. Trump contradicted her by saying “an average of one test every two days, three days.”
Airplanes, helicopters, automobiles
If the White House is crowded, try Air Force One, Marine One, or the limousine known as “the Beast” – all modes of transportation where guests are within arms’ length of the President.
Hicks, 31, was with Trump when he flew to Cleveland on Tuesday for his first of three debates against Democratic challenger Joe Biden. She was with him again on a plane to Minnesota for the next day’s rally, including the short but very close one on Marine One.
The New York Times reported that Hicks began to feel ill on the plane ride home from Minnesota and self-quarantined while aboard Air Force One.
Subject of debate
Trump’s controversial stance on masks – which he often downplayed or even mocked – could not have been more clearly stated than during Tuesday’s debate against Biden.
Trump’s family and entourage, including the first lady, arrived masked at the Cleveland Clinic hosting the event, but then removed their masks. An attempt by a doctor to distribute masks was reportedly rejected by Trump’s guests.
And according to Chris Christie, the former governor of New Jersey who had helped Trump fuel the debate days earlier, “no one was wearing masks in the room when we were getting ready.”
There were “about five or six people” in the debate room, Christie said.
(This story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
