Disease Detectives’ on Contact Tracing a Reckless President

‘Disease Detectives’ on Contact Tracing a Reckless President CDC veterans say the White House outbreak was all but inevitable. Molly McCluskey Intelligencer

Despite several suspected “superspreader” events at the White House that seem to have turbocharged the coronavirus outbreak that infected President Trump and dozens of others, the West Wing has declined offers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to “contact trace” to determine who else may be carrying the virus.

That news — and the basic lack of precautions taken by the administration — shocked and dismayed public-health experts who spoke to Intelligencer, including the former head of the CDC under President Obama and two veterans of the agency’s Epidemic Intelligence Service.

“As a general rule, the CDC doesn’t go anywhere it’s not invited,” said Dr. Tom Frieden, the former head of the CDC.

“If it were anywhere else, the local health department would be in charge, but because it’s Washington, D.C., and the White House, it’s really rather unprecedented,” Frieden said. “It’s really up to the White House Medical Unit and White House operations to either do [contact tracing] or delegate it.” On Tuesday, a White House spokesperson told ABC News the medical unit was contact tracing with someone detailed to the White House from CDC since March.

People now known to have been infected might have passed the virus on to others at five events at the least: a White House reception for Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett; an event the next day recognizing the families of deceased U.S. troops; a Trump campaign fundraiser at the president’s golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey; the first presidential debate in Cleveland; and a Trump campaign rally in Minnesota. And that’s not counting travel on Air Force One and Marine One.

“This could have been a teachable moment for the White House that testing is only part of a comprehensive safety plan,” Frieden said. “Instead, the White House over-relied on testing and let down their guard.”

Dr. Bob Wachter, the chair of the Department of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, said the events of the past few weeks should have been shocking, but, ultimately, the outbreak was inevitable. ...