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Multiple White House staff members test positive for coronavirus

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Two positive coronavirus tests inside 24 hours just turned the West Wing into its own hot zone.

A Navy valet who serves President Trump directly and Katie Miller, the press secretary for Vice President Mike Pence and spokeswoman for the coronavirus task force, both tested positive for COVID-19 within a day of each other this week. The diagnoses hit the two people in Washington with arguably the closest physical proximity to the two most powerful men in the country, and they triggered an immediate scramble over travel plans, testing protocols and mask policy inside a building that had largely resisted both.

• A U.S. Navy service member working as one of Trump’s personal valets tested positive after developing symptoms on May 6-7.
• Katie Miller tested negative on Thursday and positive on Friday morning, delaying Pence’s Air Force Two flight to Des Moines by about an hour while six staffers who’d had contact with her were pulled off the plane.
• Ivanka Trump’s personal assistant also tested positive and is now working remotely, while the White House shifts from weekly to daily testing for anyone near Trump or Pence.

The Valet Diagnosis That Started It

The first sign of trouble came from inside Trump’s own household staff. A member of the Navy’s White House Military Office, one of the valets who serve the president his meals and manage his personal quarters, developed symptoms and tested positive over the weekend of May 6-7. Valets work in tight quarters with the president on a daily basis, and the case immediately raised questions about how close the exposure had come to Trump himself.

Katie Miller’s Positive Test Grounds Air Force Two

The second case landed harder. Miller, who had tested negative just a day earlier, tested positive Friday morning, May 8. She works alongside Pence constantly as his press secretary and as the public face of the coronavirus task force, briefing reporters on testing data and White House guidance on a near-daily basis. Her diagnosis forced an abrupt scramble on the tarmac: Pence’s departure for Des Moines, Iowa was held up roughly an hour while six staffers who’d recently been in contact with Miller were ordered off Air Force Two before it could take off.

Trump addressed the case himself Friday afternoon during a meeting with Republican lawmakers, calling Miller “a wonderful young woman.”

“She tested very good for a long period of time, then all of a sudden today she tested positive.”

Trump said he was “not worried” about the virus spreading further inside the building, noting Miller had not had recent contact with him directly — though she works constantly alongside Pence, who has now been tested for the virus as a result of the exposure.

A Third Case and a Protocol Overhaul

Word also surfaced that Ivanka Trump’s personal assistant had tested positive, prompting her to shift to remote work as a precaution while Secret Service personnel monitor their own potential exposure. Three positive tests tied to the president’s inner circle in less than a week pushed White House operations into a new phase: officials are moving from weekly to daily testing for anyone working in proximity to Trump or Pence, adding temperature checks at entry points, launching contact tracing for exposed staff, and recommending masks for West Wing personnel and the press corps that covers them — a notable reversal after the White House had for weeks resisted the kind of guidance it is now beginning to enforce on its own grounds.

Obama’s Leaked Assessment

The timing collided with a separate story: leaked audio of former President Barack Obama on a private call with alumni of his administration, sharply criticizing how the federal government has handled the pandemic overall. Obama called the response “an absolute chaotic disaster,” a remark that circulated widely just as the virus was turning up inside the building he once occupied himself — adding fresh political weight to a health scare that had already rattled the task force’s own communications shop.

The task force’s public face is now sidelined by the very virus she’s spent weeks briefing reporters on, and the daily testing regimen rolling out for Trump and Pence’s inner circle will be the real test of whether this stays a two-case scare or becomes something bigger. Fauci and the rest of the task force are expected to face pointed questions on exactly that at their next public briefing.