Read This Before You Get a Covid Test
The real-life, no BS, science-backed guide
The Trump White House is now in the middle of its third Covid-19 outbreak. News broke over the weekend that chief of staff Mark Meadows, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson, and six other staffers tested positive for the novel coronavirus after attending a maskless election night party. In September, the Supreme Court nomination ceremony for Amy Coney Barrett — now labeled a superspreader event — brought down 35 people connected to the White House, including senators, staffers, and members of the press, not to mention President Trump and his immediate family. Additionally, there were reports of another outbreak within the orbit of Vice President Pence in October, with multiple staff members testing positive for Covid-19.
The administration’s publicized prevention strategy is to test every person who enters the White House every day using Covid-19 rapid tests. It’s unclear, however, whether the procedures have been carried out as planned. Frequent screening using rapid tests is proposed as one way out of this pandemic, but if that strategy has failed more than once in the most privileged environment with the explicit goal of protecting the most powerful people in the country, is there any hope for the rest of us?
