Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Outbreak Puts Vulnerable White House Staffers At Risk; Some Test Positive
AP: White House Staff, Secret Service Eye Virus With Fear, Anger
The West Wing is a ghost town. Staff members are scared of exposure. And the White House is now a treatment ward for not one — but two — COVID patients, including a president who has long taken the threat of the virus lightly. President Donald Trump’s decision to return home from a military hospital despite his continued illness is putting new focus on the people around him who could be further exposed if he doesn’t abide by strict isolation protocols. Throughout the pandemic, White House custodians, ushers, kitchen staff and members of the U.S. Secret Service have continued to show up for work in what is now a coronavirus hot spot, with more than a dozen known cases this week alone. (Colvin, Riechmann and Long, 8/6)
The Washington Post: Concern Rises For White House Residence Staffers As Their Workplace Emerges As A Virus Hot Spot
The White House residence staff members are largely Black and Latino, and often elderly, according to Kate Anderson Brower, who compiled a trove of interviews with former staffers for her book “The Residence.” ... As the residence staff has been caring for the first family, a chorus of concern has started to rise among former White House and residence staff members about whether the first family and the administration are taking care of those employees in return. (Yuan, 10/5)
The Atlantic: Trump Is Putting White House Staff At Risk Of COVID-19
Trump and the first lady interact with dozens of White House employees every day, many of them nonpolitical and largely invisible to the American public. Because of his months-long failure to take COVID-19 seriously even inside his own home, Trump continues to place these staff members and their families at considerable risk. Which is to say that the blast radius from the president’s and the first lady’s illness could be a lot larger than many Americans realize. (Godfrey and Harris, 10/5)
Politico: Working For Trump: Tweet-Firings, Subpoenas And Now Coronavirus
Working for Donald Trump has never been easy. The president’s staffers get fired and insulted by tweet. They get blamed for the president’s own failures. They get screamed at in the Oval Office. Scores of them have ended up subpoenaed, fined or even sentenced to prison. Now, the president’s staff has been dragooned into a coronavirus outbreak in which the stakes could be deadly. (Cook and McGraw, 10/5)
The New York Times: As Coronavirus Invades West Wing, White House Reporters Face Heightened Risks
Visitors to the White House will notice a makeshift sign taped to the door of the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room, entry point for the reportorial corps that regularly covers President Trump and his administration. “Masks Required Beyond This Point,” it reads. “Please wear masks over both your nose and mouth at all times.” The sign was not put up by the White House. The correspondents had to do it themselves. (Grynbaum, 10/5)
