SIX IN WHITE HOUSE, INCLUDING TRUMP’S CHIEF OF STAFF, HAVE VIRUS

Positive coronavirus tests raise concerns of new outbreak

Six White House aides and a Trump campaign adviser — including Mark Meadows, President Donald Trump’s chief of staff — have contracted the coronavirus, officials said, raising fears of another outbreak sweeping through the ranks of the nation’s top officials as cases surge to record levels in the country.

Meadows, who routinely shrugged off the need to wear masks and embraced Trump’s strategy of playing down the threat from the coronavirus, informed a small group of White House advisers that he had tested positive for the virus Wednesday.

Five other White House officials also tested positive for the virus in the days before and after Election Day.

The new wave of infections rattled and angered members of the White House staff even as they struggled to come to grips with Trump’s loss in the presidential race. News of the infections emerged despite warnings to keep quiet about the new cases.

Public health experts said the infections of Meadows and the others at the White House underscored the importance of taking numerous steps to prevent the spread of the virus. Meadows and Trump have said repeatedly that they did not need to wear masks or maintain social distancing because they were frequently tested.

“It’s emblematic of the national failure to control COVID,” said Tom Frieden, who served as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention under President Barack Obama.

The new cases at the White House came as the pandemic rampaged across the United States, which has averaged more than 100,000 new cases per day over the past week and hit another record Friday, with more than 132,700 cases in a single day. As of Saturday morning, more than 9,830,800 people in the United States had been infected with the coronavirus, and more than 236,500 had died.

Meadows is the latest in a string of people connected to the White House to contract the virus in the past seven weeks, including Trump and the first lady, Melania Trump, a half-dozen aides to the president and five aides to Pence, including his chief of staff, Marc Short. Several journalists who work at the White House were also infected. On Saturday, Rep. Matt Gaetz, Rfla. and a close ally of Trump’s, disclosed that he had tested positive for virus antibodies Tuesday but said he did not know when he had contracted the virus.

At least one gathering at the White House — on Sept. 26 — is suspected of being a “superspreader” event after more than a dozen aides, reporters and guests who were in attendance or came into contact with people who were there tested positive for the virus.

Frieden said it was possible the new cases, including Meadows’, may actually be part of the same outbreak from late September rather than a separate cluster of cases.