President Donald Trump’s COVID-19 diagnosis is raising fresh questions about the White House’s strategy for testing and containing the virus for a president whose cavalier attitude about the coronavirus has persisted since it landed on American shores.
The president has said others are tested before getting close to him, appearing to hold it as an iron shield of safety. He has largely eschewed mask-wearing and social distancing in meetings, travel and public events, while holding rallies for thousands of often maskless supporters.
The Trump administration has increasingly pinned its coronavirus testing strategy for the nation on antigen tests, which do not need a traditional lab for processing and quickly return results to patients. But the results are less accurate than those of the slower PCR (polymerase chain reaction) swab tests.
An early antigen test used by the White House was woefully inaccurate. But the new antigen test the White House is using has not been independently evaluated for accuracy and reliability. Moreover, this is the kit the Trump administration is pushing out to thousands of nursing homes to test residents and staff.
Testing “isn’t a ‘get out of jail free card,’” said Dr. Alan Wells, medical director of clinical labs at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and creator of its test for the novel coronavirus. In general, antigen tests can miss up to half the cases that are detected by PCR tests, depending on the population of patients tested, he said.
The president and first lady have both had symptoms, according to White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and the first lady’s Twitter account. The president was admitted to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on Oct. 2 “out of an abundance of caution,” White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said in a statement.
Vice President Mike Pence is also tested daily for the virus and tested negative, spokesperson Devin O’Malley said, but he did not respond to a follow-up question about which test was used.
However, even senior federal officials concede that a test alone isn’t likely to stop the spread of a virus that has sickened more than 7 million Americans.
“Testing does not substitute for avoiding crowded indoor spaces, washing hands, or wearing a mask when you can’t physically distance; further, a negative test today does not mean that you won’t be positive tomorrow,” Adm. Brett Giroir, the senior HHS official helming the administration’s testing effort, said in a statement at the time.
Trump could be part of a “super-spreading event,” said Dr. Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.
Given the timing of Trump’s positive test— which he announced on Twitter early Friday— his infection “likely happened five or more days ago,” Osterholm said. “If so, then he was widely infectious as early as Tuesday,” the day of the first presidential debate in Cleveland.
At least seven people who attended a Rose Garden announcement last Saturday, when Trump announced his nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, have since tested positive for the coronavirus. They include Trump’s former adviser Kellyanne Conway; Republican Sens. Mike Lee and Thom Tillis; and the Rev. John Jenkins.
“Having that many infected people there all at one time, we’re still going to see transmission coming off that event for a couple days,” Osterholm said.
Osterholm notes that about 20 percent of infected people lead to 80 percent of COVID-19 cases, because “super spreaders” can infect so many people at once.
He notes that participants and audience members at Tuesday’s debate were separated by at least six feet. But six feet isn’t always enough to prevent infection, he said.
While many COVID-19 infections appear to be spread by respiratory droplets, which usually fall to the ground within six feet, people who are singing or speaking loudly can project virus much further. Evidence also suggests that the novel coronavirus can spread through aerosols, floating in the air like a speck of dust.
Although Democratic presidential candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden tested negative for the virus with a PCR test, it can take more than a week for the virus to reproduce enough to be detected, Wells said: “You are probably not detectable for three, five, seven, even 10 days after you’re exposed.”
KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a nonprofit news service covering health issues. It is an editorially independent program of KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation), which is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.
