The Washington Post - 11.03.2020

A16 eZ re the washington post.wednesday, march 11 , 2020

the coronavirus outbreak

BY MIKE DEBONIS

AND CAROLYN Y. JOHNSON

Two close congressional allies

of President Trump underwent

coronavirus testing in recent

days in apparent defiance of fed-

eral recommendations reserving

those tests for patients exhibiting

symptoms of infection — and

amid growing concerns about the

availability of testing for Ameri-

cans who are sick.

Reps. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) and

Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), the lat-

ter of whom Tr ump named last

week as the next White House

chief of staff, both said in state-

ments that the tests showed no

infection after exposure to a coro-

navirus carrier at the annual

Conservative Political Action

Conference last month in subur-

ban Washington.

The two lawmakers also said

they were exhibiting no symp-

toms of respiratory illness, rais-

ing questions of why they were

tested at all.

The Centers for Disease Con-

trol and Prevention recommends

that health-care providers priori-

tize tests for hospitalized pa-

tients who are exhibiting corona-

virus symptoms, elderly and

medically fragile individuals,

along with others who have

shown signs of illness after con-

tact with a known or suspected

coronavirus patient.

Gaetz, 37, and Meadows, 60,

are not known to belong to any

groups at high risk for infection.

Spokesmen for the two lawmak-

ers declined to comment beyond

their public statements confirm-

ing the negative test results and

their decision to self-quarantine

as a precaution.

The scarcity of testing has

emerged as a crucial challenge to

the U.S. response to the coronavi-

rus outbreak, with health provid-

ers, public officials and individu-

als all calling for more wide-

spread testing capacity. The un-

availability of tests makes it

di fficult to determine how many

Americans are infected with the

disease.

Accounts from sick Americans

who have struggled to secure

testing have proliferated on so-

cial media, and one Republican

pressed the CDC director Tues-

day on why fellow lawmakers

were able to get quickly tested

when her own constituents were

waiting days for results.

“I find it interesting that when

my colleagues were in contact

with someone who later tested

positive [they] were able to get

tested almost immediately and

quickly receive their results while

folks in my district and across

Washington state are unable to

get their testing results back,”

Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-

Wash.) told Robert Redfield of

the CDC at a House Appropria-

tions Committee hearing.

Redfield acknowledged the

shortcomings in testing: “The

truth is, we’re underinvested in

the public health labs,” he said.

“There’s not enough equipment.

There’s not enough people.

There’s not enough internal ca-

pacity. There’s no surge capacity.”

The precise circumstances of

the lawmakers’ testing remained

sketchy Tuesday.

Gaetz said in an interview

Monday that he planned to seek

testing at Walter Reed National

Military Medical Center later

that day, and a person familiar

with Meadows’s test said it, too,

was conducted at Walter Reed —

an institution that is affiliated

with both the White House physi-

cian's office and the congressio-

nal attending physician and of-

ten treats members of Congress.

But there were clues of White

House involvement in the test-

ing: Four other lawmakers who

consulted with the congressional

physician, Brian P. Monahan, af-

ter exposure to confirmed coro-

navirus carriers — Reps. Julia

Brownley (D-Calif.), Douglas A.

Collins (R-Ga.), and Paul A. G osar

(R-Ariz.), as well as Sen. Te d Cruz

(R-Te x.) — were not told to seek

testing, according to their aides.

“This is based on the CDC’s

recommendation to not get test-

ed unless symptoms are present,”

said Gosar spokesman Ben Gold-

ey. He said Gosar and aides

remain healthy.

Gaetz told the Pensacola

News-Journal on Tuesday that he

was awaiting the results of his

test from the White House physi-

cian’s office. About an hour after

the article published on the

newspaper’s website, Gaetz

tweeted that the test was nega-

tive.

The congressman, who left

Washington on Monday after-

noon by private vehicle, told the

newspaper that he slept in a

“Walmart parking lot somewhere

off 85” because h e couldn’t s tay in

a hotel.

A White House spokesman,

Judd Deere, did not respond to a

request for comment, nor did

Monahan.

Both Meadows and Gaetz di-

rectly interacted with Trump in

the days after they visited CPAC

and met with the confirmed coro-

navirus carrier — Gaetz rode on

Air Force One with Tr ump on

Monday, and Meadows attended

a White House meeting on immi-

gration legislation last week.

Asked why he has not been

tested, Trump told reporters

Tuesday that the White House

doctor, Sean Conley, “sees no

reason to do it — there’s no

symptoms, no anything.”

“I don’t think it’s a big deal. I

would do it,” he said, adding “it’s

not a big deal to get tested.”

According to the CDC, about

8,500 people have been tested in

the United States as of Monday,

including those tested by the

CDC and public health laborato-

ries across the country.

Federal officials have said that

tests to cover 75,000 people have

been sent out to those public

health laboratories, and more

than 1 million tests have been

sent out to other labs, such as

hospitals. But the agency does

not yet have a way to track people

who receive tests outside that

limited network, for example at

hospital labs or others that buy

test kits that have just become

available in the last few days.

U.S. officials have cautioned

against comparisons to testing

capacity in other countries, but

as of March 10, South Korea

reported it had tested more than

200,000 people.

“We still need to get more labs

in the game and more capacity to

run patient samples,” said Scott

Gottlieb, former Food and Drug

Administration commissioner in

the Trump administration. “A nd

the testing capacity we do have

isn’t evenly distributed to the

parts of the country where there

may be the greatest medical

need.”

Multiple lawmakers in both

parties, including House Speaker

Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), said they

did not think members of Con-

gress ought to receive special

access to tests not available to the

public at large or be subject to a

higher standard for screening.

“I think we have to take care of

the people first,” Pelosi said Tues-

day.

Rep. Raul Ruiz (D-Calif.), a

physician, said lawmakers

should get the same treatment as

the general public, following the

recommendations of public

health authorities:

“A member who meets the

clinical j ustifications for getting a

test should get tested. And if they

don’t necessarily meet the justifi-

cation to get tested... then they

should not be tested because t hey

are members of Congress.”

The CDC’s guidance, however,

tells health-care providers to “use

their judgment” to evaluate a

patient and decide whether test-

ing is warranted. Besides judging

possible s ymptoms, clinicians are

being told to consider “epidemio-

logic factors” as well.

“Documented COVID-19 infec-

tions in a jurisdiction and known

community transmission may

contribute to an epidemiologic

risk assessment to inform testing

decisions,” t he CDC said in guid-

ance issued Sunday, referring to

the medical community’s name

for the pathogen.

One senior lawmaker, mean-

while, suggested Monday that a

higher standard of care may be

warranted for members of Con-

gress, who could be called upon

in the coming weeks to pass

legislation to address the out-

break and its economic effects.

“Look, we want to have all

Americans have tests,” House

Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer

(D-Md.). “But we also want to

make sure that the Congress can

respond to this crisis so we can

protect all Americans.”

[email protected]

Josh dawsey, Laurie Mcginley and

Ben te rris contributed to this report.

Trump allies received tests

despite lack of symptoms

Bonnie Jo Mount/the Washington Post

Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) talks with reporters during a break in impeachment proceedings at the

Capitol in January. Meadows interacted with the president during a White House meeting last week.

astrid riecken for the Washington Post

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) attends a news briefing after a vote on the

impeachment articles. His interaction was aboard Air Force One.

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