Not content with Donald Trump’s one-man superspreader tour, the Trump campaign is launching several tries at infecting still more people with the coronavirus directly and personally, rather than just through Trump’s negligence on a national level.
At least nine different Trump surrogates who should be quarantining, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines, will instead be out campaigning later this week, HuffPost’s Jessica Schulberg reports. Mike Pence, of course, leads the list. After Wednesday night’s vice presidential debate, the leader of the White House coronavirus task force will be campaigning in Nevada and Arizona on Thursday. Pence attended the Sept. 26 announcement event for Amy Coney Barrett.
Additionally, Donald Trump Jr. will be at an event in Florida, Eric Trump will be at two events in North Carolina, and Lara Trump will be at a “Women for Trump” event in Pennsylvania. All three were at last week’s presidential debate, visibly refusing to wear masks. Joining Lara Trump at “Women for Trump” will be Mercedes Schlapp and Katrina Pierson, who were also at the presidential debate.
Others out campaigning for Trump while he’s home with COVID-19 include South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, who attended a Minnesota fundraiser with Trump last Wednesday, a time when he was reportedly starting to show symptoms of illness. Former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, who will be in Florida, was at the Sept. 26 Amy Coney Barrett event.
The CDC guidelines are to quarantine for 14 days if you were in close contact with someone who has COVID-19, with close contact defined as being within six feet of the person for 15 minutes or more or having direct physical contact with them—or, of course, if they sneezed or coughed or otherwise obviously got respiratory droplets on you. At this point it’s hard for anyone who was at the Amy Coney Barrett event to guarantee that they weren’t within six feet of someone with coronavirus for 15 minutes or more, given how many people at that event have gone on to test positive. For example, Pence was sitting directly in front of Sen. Mike Lee, who has COVID-19, and days later escorted Barrett to Capitol Hill, where she met with Lee.
It’s not news that Team Trump doesn’t care who’s put in danger, even as poll after poll shows that Donald Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic—and now of his own illness—is a key weakness for his reelection. So this attempted superspreader tour is as stupid as it is dangerous.