The White House and a compliant Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are not interested in doing serious contact tracing to determine the impact of the Trumpworld COVID-19 superspreader tour, so it’s fallen to the press to fill the gap. USA Today is attempting to crowdsource contact tracing, and its preliminary look finds that hundreds or even thousands of people may have been exposed, starting with the people who went home from the Amy Coney Barrett announcement party and went about their lives.
At least 12 people who attended that event subsequently tested positive. Donald Trump went on to hold an event for Gold Star families the next day. Adm. Charles Ray, the vice commandant of the Coast Guard, was at that event and subsequently tested positive. Since Ray had, by that time, been in meetings with top military leaders, most of the Joint Chiefs of Staff ended up self-quarantining. It doesn’t stop there.
As we know, Donald Trump had a full week of campaigning, including a debate, a fundraiser and a rally in Minnesota, and a fundraiser in New Jersey. That New Jersey fundraiser had an indoor component with around 18 donors, while around 200 gathered outdoors. At that time, Trump definitely knew that his aide, Hope Hicks, had tested positive for the coronavirus, and Trump was reportedly showing symptoms himself. Several White House staff would go on to test positive in the days after Trump, including former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien, Kellyanne Conway, Stephen Miller, and more.
It wasn’t just Trump, though. Sens. Mike Lee and Thom Tillis attended a Judiciary Committee meeting and a Senate Republican lunch in the days between the Saturday event and their Friday positive tests. Rep. Salud Carbajal, who lives in the same building as Lee and had interacted with him, subsequently tested positive.
Trump surrogates, including ones who attended the Amy Coney Barrett event or the debate or both, fanned out across the country this week to do campaign events rather than quarantining until they could be sure they hadn’t contracted the virus. Six pastors who had been at the Barrett event went home and did in-person sermons rather than quarantining. Vice President Mike Pence, of course, participated in the vice presidential debate. And who knows how many other people left any of these events, including the fundraisers, and went on with their lives with no concern for protecting others. Since the White House and CDC aren’t interested in finding out, though, we don’t know the full numbers. What we do know is bad enough.