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WASHINGTON: It was supposed to be a celebratory setting.
Instead, the Trump campaign election night watch party in the East Room of the White House has become yet another symbol of President Donald Trump’s arrogant attitude toward a virus that is spreading across the country and infecting more than 100,000 people a day.
Polls suggest the attitude was a drag on the president’s re-election, as voters chose to deny Trump a second term in favor of his Democratic rival, now President-elect Joe Biden.
And the party, with few masks and no social distancing, is now under additional scrutiny after the president’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows, became the latest senior White House official to contract the virus, which has now killed more than 237,000 people in the US alone.
The White House has repeatedly refused to say who else has tested positive, even as the virus continues to spread. The latest White House cluster, which came just a month after Trump’s own diagnosis and hospitalization, includes a senior Trump campaign official as well as a handful of undisclosed White House staff, they said. The authorities.
The White House has been increasingly secretive about the outbreaks. Many White House and campaign officials, as well as those who attended the election watch party, were kept in the dark about the diagnoses, unknowingly until they were revealed by the press.
The fact that the virus continues to spread in the White House, despite high-level staff and those who come into close contact with the president and vice president undergoing frequent testing, has not come as a surprise to officials. health workers who have resisted the laxity of the White House. Getting closer.
“The administration was more arrogant about the risks of the virus to them and to the country. And that’s one of the reasons we have so many cases, “said Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, professor of public health at Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health.
Even Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has said that he has been avoiding the White House since August “because my impression was that his approach to how to handle this was different from mine and what I insisted we do in the Senate, that it is wearing a mask and practicing social distancing ”.
Meadows, in particular, has long tried to minimize the severity of the virus. He rarely wore a mask in public, except in the immediate aftermath of Trump’s infection. At one point, he refused to speak to reporters on Capitol Hill after they asked him to wear a mask.
He was again without one during the East Room event Tuesday night, where more than 100 of Trump’s most loyal supporters gathered to view the election results and watch him deliver what they hoped would be a victory speech.
It was a festive atmosphere, with half-empty glasses of wine and other drinks scattered on the cocktail tables in front of the news cameras. Meadows, who spent time with Trump’s family before, was seen working the room, even hitting attendees several times, before Trump took the stage Wednesday morning.
While everyone who attended the East Room event had been screened in advance for the virus, there was no social distancing and minimal use of masks.
That same day, Meadows had also accompanied the president to his campaign headquarters in Virginia, where Trump received enthusiastic cheers from several dozen employees and volunteers. Meadows did not wear a mask, nor did other members of the White House staff. Campaign aides did it to a great extent.
In this Oct.30, 2020 photo, White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows speaks on the phone on the south lawn of the White House in Washington. (Photo: AP / Patrick Semansky)
If Meadows tested positive Wednesday, as Bloomberg News reported, it likely would have been contagious during both events, said Saskia Popescu, an epidemiologist who teaches at George Mason University.
Meadows had also traveled with Trump in the run-up to Election Day, attending dozens of rallies where he was seen interacting with unmasked supporters.
Trump’s refusal to abide by his own administration’s public health guidelines throughout the campaign was a major source of frustration for local governments, as he scheduled rally after rally challenging local limits on crowd size. , even in pandemic hot spots.
While Trump hoped his efforts to downplay the virus in a bid to jump-start a limping economy would help him with voters, many Republicans now believe that Trump could have won re-election if he had handled things differently.
Still, Trump’s approach reflected the priorities of his supporters. The AP VoteCast, a national poll of the electorate, found that roughly half of Trump’s voters rated the economy and employment as the top problem facing the nation, compared to just 1 in 10 Biden voters. Meanwhile, the majority of Biden’s voters – roughly 6 in 10 – said the pandemic was the biggest problem facing the country.
The White House did not respond to specific questions about the current outbreak, but said the White House Medical Unit had conducted contact tracing, in accordance with guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“Appropriate notifications and recommendations have been made,” the White House said.
The CDC defines “close contact” as spending at least 15 minutes within 6 feet of an infected person beginning two days before they test positive or show symptoms.
But Popescu called the party, in particular, “an environment conducive to broadcasting,” saying that all attendees should have been informed and asked to take precautions.
“While they may not meet the CDC exposure guidelines, I think that when we are watching an event indoors with many people for an extended period who are unmasked, as a precaution, everyone should be notified and encouraged to stay home.” , said.
“Now is not the time to be arrogant about risks,” Sharfstein said.
Ohio Pastor Darrell Scott, a close ally of the president who attended the party, said he did not know that any White House official beyond Meadows had tested positive until a reporter reported it and he had not been contacted by any tracker.
While Scott, like many in Trump’s orbit, continued to insist that fraud was to blame for the loss of the president, despite no credible evidence to back up those claims, he also blamed Trump for various “unforced errors. “during the campaign, including the way he spoke about the virus.
“I can’t be upset if we shoot ourselves in the foot,” he said.
The latest outbreak came less than two weeks after several aides to Vice President Mike Pence, including his chief of staff, tested positive for the virus.
And it came a month after Trump, first lady Melania Trump and at least two dozen others tested positive after Trump held large gatherings of people not wearing face masks, including the ceremony at which the judge’s nomination was announced. Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court.
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