Bloomberg Businessweek - USA (2020-10-12)

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◼ REMARKS

● TheCovidoutbreakin the

president’sinnercircleis America’s

pandemicfailurein microcosm

● ByRobertLangrethand

MichelleFayCortez

How the Virus Trumped the White House

SARS-CoV-2doesn’tpayattentiontopartyaffiliation. Nor does

it listen to spin that the nation is turning a corner in the pan-

demic or promises that a vaccine to solve everything is immi-

nent. All it does is spread, silently and efficiently, wherever

and whenever it can, taking advantage of people who let their

guard down to find more throats and noses to infect.

The coronavirus apparently found plenty of throats to col-

onize at the White House. At least 12 people who attended

a Rose Garden ceremony for Supreme Court nominee Amy

Coney Barrett on Sept. 26, or other indoor events associated

with it, have now tested positive, including the president

and the first lady, two Republican senators, the president

of the University of Notre Dame, former aide Kellyanne

Conway, and press secretary Kayleigh McEnany. Numerous

others in Trump’s orbit who aren’t known to have attended

the Rose Garden event, including top aides Hope Hicks and

StephenMillerandcampaignmanagerBillStepien,havealso

contracted the virus.

The White House outbreak, consuming the highest lev-

els of the U.S. government, is a superspreader event with

geopolitical shock waves. It’s driven several of the country’s

top military leaders into quarantine and could ultimately put

thousands of ordinary people, including staff at the White

House and Trump’s Bedminster, N.J., golf club and their fam-

ilies, in danger. And it’s a microcosm of the Trump adminis-

tration’s handling of the pandemic from the beginning: All

along, it has bet on quick fixes over unglamorous preventive

measures like masks, social distancing, and contact tracing.

Even now, the White House is focused on moving on. “The

president is conveying confidence and resilience and demon-

strating to the American people that we must not live in fear,

that we must reopen in a safe way and go back to school,

go back to work, go back to church, because to do other-

wise would be un-American,” deputy press secretary Brian

MorgensternsaidonOct.6.

TrumpannouncedonTwitterthathe’dtestedpositivefor

thevirussoonaftermidnightonFriday,Oct.2, hours after

Bloomberg News’s Jennifer Jacobs broke the news that Hicks,

one of his closest aides, had tested positive. He spent three days

in the hospital before returning to the White House on Monday

night. Exactly how serious his condition was isn’t clear. But

physicians were worried enough to administer an experimental