Mike Pence tested negative for coronavirus Friday morning, his press secretary announced. The question now is whether he will test negative on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, since the virus has an incubation period and it’s possible to test negative one day and positive the next—as Donald Trump and Hope Hicks have just reminded us. With the presidential succession in mind, CNN medical analyst Dr. Jonathan Reiner advised Thursday night that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi should isolate in case both Trump and Pence become sick.
Former Vice President Joe Biden is expected to have a COVID-19 test on Friday, though as with Pence, a negative result won’t guarantee continuing negative tests. Biden was exposed to Trump—at a distance, but for an extended period of Trump shouting—on Tuesday night at the debate. “But on the contact tracing front, two Biden camp officials say there has been NO CONTACT from the White House or the Trump campaign to Biden team to alert them to potential exposure,” NBC's Ali Vitali reports.
Pence was unmasked in the Rose Garden with Trump on Monday for a coronavirus briefing, as Trump insisted “I say, and I’ll say it all the time: We’re rounding the corner.”
Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner have tested negative, the White House said Friday morning. But the same caveats apply to them.
It’s likely that this would not have been an issue had Trump behaved responsibly, encouraging mask-wearing in the White House and wearing a mask himself, rather than assuming that he could create a bubble around himself through constant testing—ignoring both the possibility that people have been infected but are not yet at the point of testing positive and the possibility of false negatives. Even perfect handling of the pandemic wouldn’t have ensured zero deaths in the United States, but man, so much of this didn’t have to happen.