The Trump administration is racing to contain an outbreak of Covid-19 inside the White House, as some senior officials believe that the disease is already spreading rapidly through the warren of cramped offices that make up the three floors of the West Wing.
Three top officials leading the government’s coronavirus response have begun two weeks of self-quarantine after two members of the White House staff — one of President Trump’s personal valets and Katie Miller, the spokeswoman for Vice President Mike Pence — tested positive.
But others who came into contact with Miller and the valet are continuing to report to work at the White House.
“It is scary to go to work,” Kevin Hassett, a top economic adviser to the president, said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” program today.
Hassett said he wore a mask at times at the White House, but conceded that “I think that I’d be a lot safer if I was sitting at home than I would be going to the West Wing.”
He added: “It’s a small, crowded place. It’s, you know, it’s a little bit risky. But you have to do it because you have to serve your country.”
The discovery of the two infected employees has prompted the White House to ramp up its procedures to combat the virus, asking more staff members to work from home, increasing usage of masks and more rigorously screening people who enter the complex.
The concern about an outbreak of the virus at the White House — and the swift testing and contact tracing being done to contain it — underscores the broader challenge for Americans as Trump urges them to begin returning to their workplaces despite warnings from public health officials that the virus continues to ravage communities across the country.
Most restaurants, offices and retail stores do not have the ability to regularly test all their employees and quickly track down and quarantine the contacts of anyone who gets infected.
At the White House, all employees are being tested at least weekly, officials said, and a handful of top aides who regularly interact with the president are being tested daily.
“To get in with the president, you have to test negative,” Hassett said.
Trump continues to reject guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to wear a mask when meeting with groups of people.
But a senior administration official said the president was spooked that his valet, who is among those who serve him food, had not been wearing a mask.
And he was annoyed to learn that Miller tested positive and has been growing irritated with people who get too close to him, the official said.
Two senior administration officials said there were no plans to keep Trump and Pence apart because of a concern that they both could be incapacitated by Covid-19.
Concern about the spread of the virus in the White House has temporarily sidelined three of most high-profile members of the coronavirus task force — Dr. Robert R. Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Dr. Stephen Hahn, the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration; and Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
Drs. Redfield and Hahn announced over the weekend that they would self-quarantine for two weeks after coming in contact with an infected member of the president’s staff.
Both attended a meeting in the Situation Room last week where Miller was present.
Both doctors said they would continue to participate in the response effort from home, and Senator Lamar Alexander, Republican of Tennessee, said in a statement that they would participate on Tuesday by videoconference in a previously scheduled hearing.
Dr. Fauci said he, too, had begun a “modified quarantine” after what he called a “low risk” contact with an infected staff member.
Miller, who was a fixture at the White House during the weeks when the task force was holding daily briefings, received her positive diagnosis on Friday morning but had been negative on previous tests as recently as the day before.
Like other members of the White House staff, Miller did not regularly wear a mask while at work.
On Thursday, just hours after receiving a negative diagnosis, she was seen on television talking without a mask within a few feet of several reporters, all of whom were wearing one.
Stephen Miller, one of the president’s closest advisers and Miller’s husband, is also not expected to come into the White House for the foreseeable future, according to people familiar with his plans.
Miller tested negative for the virus on Friday after his wife’s positive diagnosis earlier in the day.
Members of the Secret Service who work at the White House are now wearing masks regularly.
People who enter the White House campus, which includes the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, where many White House staff members work, will now be asked by medical doctors whether they have any of a list of symptoms.
And the people closest to Trump — including Kayleigh McEnany, the White House press secretary; Mark Meadows, the chief of staff; and Hope Hicks, a senior adviser — are being tested daily, officials said.