Live Updates: Trump Assessments Good For Coronavirus : NPR

On Monday, President Donald Trump returned to the White Dwelling just after spending the weekend in the hospital remaining taken care of for COVID-19. Almost a dozen members of the president’s circle have also analyzed constructive for the coronavirus in current times, heightening alarm that scores of non-political White Home staff members are now at hazard of exposure.

“There [are] about 90 of them,” Kate Andersen Brower, writer of The Residence: Inside the Non-public Planet of the White House, mentioned in an interview on NPR’s Morning Edition on Wednesday. “You have butlers, ushers, painters, engineers, plumbers. It is really a enormous universe of men and women that most individuals will not even know exists at the White Residence.”

Brower, who interviewed a lot more than 50 White House staff members for her book, stated the people who do the job most closely with the initial family members are “the folks you’d be the most concerned about. And primarily they are the butlers and the housekeepers on the second floor of the White Household.”

It remains unclear to what extent staff may perhaps have been uncovered to the coronavirus. Not each and every member of the White House residence workers has immediate call with the to start with spouse and children. Questioned Sunday if the White House would say how many staffers have been contaminated, Push Secretary Kayleigh McEnany — who declared her very own good check on Monday — stated it would not, citing privacy considerations.

The home has had “medical center quality disinfection procedures” in location considering the fact that March, in accordance to a assertion released Tuesday by the White Residence, and considering that April, residence personnel have been necessary to wear masks at all times. The staff members that has immediate get in touch with with the first spouse and children is analyzed daily for the virus, and help workers are tested just about every 48 hrs, according to the statement.

“With the new positive final results of the President and First Girl, personnel wear full PPE and continue to choose all needed precautions, which include things like up-to-date processes to defend in opposition to cross contamination,” the White Residence explained.

But Brower mentioned that is not adequate.

“This is continue to placing them at hazard,” she said. “These are persons who really feel a good deal of stress to get the job done. They have home loans to spend. So it is reckless to place them in this situation.”

Brower explained these work usually are not political: They’re workers customers who remain in their positions for decades, by Democratic and Republican administrations alike.

“They are so devoted to the president, whoever the president is,” Brower explained. “They provide from one particular administration to the following, regardless of get together. And I’ve interviewed various of them in the earlier couple of times — numerous former employees — and they are very anxious for their mates who are still functioning in the White Dwelling.”

Problem is expanding for members of the Mystery Company, far too, who are equally in shut make contact with with the First Relatives. On Sunday, at least two brokers ended up sealed within an SUV with the president as he drove outdoors the hospital to wave to supporters. He wore a mask, and the agents wore masks and protective smocks.

“Agents are presently worrying about guns and knives and bombs,” J.J. Hensley, a novelist who utilised to work for the Solution Services, instructed NPR on Tuesday. “Now they have to worry about COVID-19.”

Ziad Buchh and Catherine Whelan manufactured and edited the audio version of this story.