Throughout the pandemic, Donald Trump has played down the danger of the coronavirus and resisted measures that could help bring it under control—including robust testing and contact tracing. And yet, when the virus infiltrates White House grounds, the administration appears far more open to following the science and quickly adopting safety protocols.
On Wednesday, an administration official announced that two cafeterias used by senior staff had been closed after an employee tested positive for COVID-19—the latest person in the orbit of the president or his top aides to become infected. It wasn’t clear who the worker was or if the person had symptoms, but the White House took swift action, shutting down cafeterias in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building and the New Executive Office Building—where Mike Pence, top administration officials, and members of the coronavirus task force have offices—and conducting contact tracing on the employee.
“There is no reason for panic or alarm,” the White House said in an email to officials, obtained by NBC News. “The White House Medical Unit has already conducted contact tracing and based off of their interviews, they have determined that no EOP staff should self-quarantine due to exposure.”
The White House apparently sees the value in testing and tracing when the virus hits close to home. But when it comes to a national testing and tracing regime, the administration has not had a similar sense of urgency. Testing has expanded in the United States since the beginning of the pandemic, but it remains woefully inadequate, with infections surging faster than testing increases. Rather than prioritizing testing, the administration has instead pushed to block money for testing and tracing, as well as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, from being included in the next coronavirus relief package. And the president, of course, has made his personal feelings on testing clear: It “makes us look like we have more cases,” as he wrote in a tweet last month.
“Cases are up because we have the best testing in the world,” the president said in a wild Fox News interview last week, “and we have the most testing.”
He’s wrong. The influx of infections does not merely reflect increased testing, and the United States is far from the “envy of the world” when it comes to its testing regime or overall handling of the coronavirus crisis. Testing has improved; it is now conducting nearly 800,000 tests per day, up from an average 146,000 per day three months ago. But as Bloomberg’s Timothy O’Brien noted Wednesday, some experts believe that the country needs to be conducting at least 5 million tests daily to effectively manage the virus. Given the lack of leadership out of the Trump administration, it’s hard to imagine that happening. So, at least for now, Americans are continuing to face testing shortages and often slow results — unless, of course, they happen to work at the White House.
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