2 years ago
Standing before a packed White House crowd this week, President Joe Biden cheerfully ticked off a series of his administration’s health care accomplishments. Among them, he said: Finally getting the coronavirus “under control.”
Yet as Biden waded through the celebratory East Room, embracing and shaking hands with dozens of maskless lawmakers and advocates, the virus was quietly running rampant through the building.
In the space of a week, dozens of White House aides and federal officials have contracted the disease in an outbreak that appears to have touched all corners of the administration. Two Cabinet members have it, along with a growing list of congressional Democrats.
Vice President Kamala Harris — who stood next to Biden on Tuesday — has had her communications staff hit by Covid. And on Thursday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi also tested positive, just a day after appearing alongside the president.
The outbreak has jolted a Washington establishment that’s been eager to leave Covid behind and offered an up-close reminder of the pandemic threat that still hangs over the nation and Biden’s presidency. It’s also raised fresh questions about how best to protect the 79-year-old commander in chief, who vowed this year to “get out” of the White House more often — yet faces an ever-present elevated risk of severe illness.
“Everybody’s in danger,” said Irwin Redlener, director of the Pandemic Resources and Response Initiative at Columbia University. “It’s almost impossible to isolate the president of the United States in a way that would keep him from getting sick.”
Biden’s ability to remain Covid-free to date has been the result of stringent White House protocols, careful travel and — as some officials will acknowledge — a bit of luck. Despite sharing the stage with Pelosi hours earlier, the White House on Thursday said that Biden had so far tested negative.
But Covid’s creep toward the Oval Office underscores the delicate stage that the administration has entered in its broader fight against the pandemic. After weathering multiple surges throughout his first year, Biden is now trying to claim a measure of victory — highlighting the plunge in Covid cases nationally and touting the array of vaccines and treatments developed to fight off infection.
“Because of the strategy we executed over the past year on vaccinations, testing, treatments and more, we’re now in a new moment in this pandemic,” he said last week.
Yet even as Democrats try to pivot toward more politically friendly territory and the public wearies of the pandemic and its precautions, White House officials have spent recent weeks preoccupied with preventing a backslide.
The administration last month rolled out a 100-page plan to contain the virus over the long term. Officials pitched a range of proposals that signaled a shift out of crisis mode and toward a greater focus on preparedness.
But those ambitions were immediately engulfed by a fight over funding. More than a month later, the White House is still struggling to secure the billions of dollars needed to ensure its immediate response stays afloat — much less set up the systems that might allow the U.S. to truly move on.
Biden himself has tried to split the difference, pairing praise for his administration’s progress with urgent appeals for the need to remain wary of future threats. Both senior health officials and close political advisers have cautioned him against ever declaring the pandemic over, for fear of the damage that an ill-timed surge would inflict on both the nation’s psyche and Democrats’ chances in November.
The White House’s Covid operation, meanwhile, is also in flux.
Prominent public health expert Ashish Jha is set to take over next week as the administration’s coronavirus response coordinator. In addition to acclimating to his first White House job and haggling with Congress for the money that funds his high-profile role, Jha’s first week will now include another challenge: Convincing the public that a White House reeling from its own outbreak can still keep Covid under control throughout the country.
“The bigger question is not which one of us is getting it — it’s making sure that people understand it’s not over,” said Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-Del.), who was in the room with Biden on Tuesday. “If we don’t keep Covid at bay, we all go backwards.”
Inside the administration, some officials worry about Biden and Harris’ ability to continue dodging the disease — and the increasingly complicated logistics of staffing them as more of their coworkers are confined to home.
The overwhelming reaction, though, appeared to be a collective eye roll that despite weeks of dire warnings that the federal Covid response was running out of money, it was only an outbreak among Washington’s elite that proved capable of capturing the town’s attention.
At Thursday’s briefing, press secretary Jen Psaki faced 21 questions about Biden’s Covid protocol — eclipsing the 10 on the broader funding shortfall asked during the entire first week of April. The contrast was noted with some exasperation within the White House.
Even as cases spread within the building, White House officials have maintained that their own precautions are sufficient to protect the president. In addition to following guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, officials in close contact with Biden are tested regularly and meetings are kept socially distant whenever possible.
“We have incredibly stringent protocols here at the White House that we keep in place to keep the president safe,” Psaki said Thursday. “We expected there to be ups and downs and increases.”
Biden’s Tuesday health event, which featured former President Barack Obama’s return to the White House, was also originally supposed to be held outside in the Rose Garden, invitees said and the White House confirmed. But inclement weather forced a move inside, where people crammed in shoulder-to-shoulder for the duration of the 40-plus minute event.
For at least as long as Biden remains uninfected, there are few signs that the circulating virus will prompt any scale-back of his schedule. The president is fully vaccinated and boosted, and has relished the opportunity to mingle with the broader public.
There’s also some messaging value, Biden officials noted, in demonstrating how people can go about their lives with minimal disruption even if Covid isn’t fully defeated. That is, as long as government has the resources to keep up its vigilance.
Still, that message hasn’t produced results on Capitol Hill. On Thursday, several lawmakers told POLITICO the spike in cases in D.C.’s power corridors only ramped up the urgency for Congress to pass billions more in Covid funding.
Then, much to the White House’s chagrin, they left town.
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