A coronavirus outbreak centered at the White House has exploded in the weeks since President Trump said he tested positive on October 2. At least three dozen people so far are known to have contracted the virus, but the true number is unknown absent a running update from the White House. Instead, reporters have tapped sources and otherwise relied on the infected to come forward in order to gain a fuller portrait of the disaster. The outbreak has grown so vast that it has apparently infected everyone from unnamed federal employees to senior Pentagon leaders. Here is a running tally of those known to be infected.
Barron Trump
Barron Trump, the president’s youngest son, tested positive for COVID-19 shortly after his parents. First Lady Melania Trump revealed Barron’s diagnosis for the first time on October 14 in a lengthy online post released by the White House. She said the 14-year-old initially tested negative, but her “fear came true” when he received a positive diagnosis a short time later:
Luckily he is a strong teenager and exhibited no symptoms. In one way I was glad the three of us went through this at the same time so we could take care of one another and spend time together. He has since tested negative.
Trish Scalia, the Labor secretary’s wife
Labor Department employees were informed via email on Tuesday evening that Trish Scalia, Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia’s wife, tested positive for COVID-19 hours earlier. According to Politico, the email said she is “experiencing mild symptoms but doing well,” while her husband tested negative and is experiencing no symptoms. Trish Scalia, the secretary, and his mother sat in the second row during the Rose Garden event introducing Trump’s Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett.
Two additional White House staff members
The New York Times reports that two White House residence staffers tested positive for Covid-19 three weeks ago. Overall, at least four people who work in the building in non-political roles have contracted the virus. None typically come into contact with the president, according to the Times.
A fourth White House reporter
The White House Correspondents Association told its members on Thursday that another reporter received a preliminary positive result from a rapid test on Thursday. The unnamed reporter is asymptomatic and awaiting the results from a more accurate test. The unnamed reporter was last at the White House on October 1 and is at least the fourth member of the press pool there to test positive.
White House security official Crede Bailey
Crede Bailey, the top official in charge of the White House security office, tested positive prior to September 26 and has been hospitalized, with his condition described as “gravely ill,” according to Bloomberg News. Bailey is a career federal employee who works closely with the Secret Service and was briefly caught up a scandal involving security clearances for Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump. Trump said on September 15 that a member of the White House staff had tested positive, but it is unclear if that person is Bailey.
USMC General Gary Thomas
General Thomas, the assistant commandant of the Marine Corps, tested positive for COVID-19 on Wednesday. Thomas was one of the top military leaders, including the majority of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who attended a meeting with Coast Guard admiral Charles Ray last week at the Pentagon. Ray tested positive on Monday.
Senior Trump adviser Stephen Miller
Miller, who is President Trump’s senior policy adviser, speechwriter, and the architect of the Trump administration’s war on immigrants, announced that he had tested positive on Tuesday. Miller’s wife, Katie Waldman Miller, who also works in the administration as Vice President Mike Pence’s press secretary, was out three weeks in May after she tested positive for COVID-19. Her illness was one of the major warning signs the White House failed to heed.
Two of the president’s military aides
Two military aides to Trump tested positive, Bloomberg News reported on Tuesday: an active-duty officer who serves as his valet and Jayna McCarron of the Coast Guard.
USCG Admiral Charles Ray
The Coast Guard admiral, who attended a maskless indoor reception for Gold Star military families at the White House on Sunday, September 27, tested positive on Monday. His case prompted the quarantine of many others at the Pentagon, as Ray had met with members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff — including staff’s chairman and top U.S. general, Mark Milley — and other officials at the Pentagon last week.
Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany
On Monday morning, the White House press secretary announced in a statement that she has tested positive. She said she had experienced no symptoms, maintained that she did not know about Hope Hicks’s positive test before briefing the press (maskless) on Thursday, and referred to herself as an “essential worker.”
McEnany has been briefing reporters frequently in recent days, often not wearing a mask. Three as yet unidentified White House journalists have already tested positive for the virus — it’s unclear who infected them — and other reporters were not happy with McEnany’s cavalier attitude toward their personal safety. Four White House press aides have also tested positive.
Pastor Greg Laurie
Intelligencer’s Olivia Nuzzi reports that Pastor Greg Laurie of Riverside, California tested positive. Laurie had attended the Prayer March on the Mall with Mike Pence and Franklin Graham in late September, and the Rose Garden nomination of Amy Coney Barrett — at which several people who have contracted the illness were present — that same day.
First Lady Melania Trump
The First Lady’s positive test was reported at the same time as the president’s. In a tweet, she said that she, like her husband, was suffering mild symptoms.
She provided another update on Monday, reporting that she was feeling well.
At least two White House communication aides
Senior presidential adviser Hope Hicks
Hicks’s positive test was initially reported on Thursday night, hours before the president’s. Hicks reportedly tested negative on Wednesday morning — the night after the presidential debate — and boarded Air Force One, where she was with the president and several senior staff members.
New York Times reporter Michael Shear and two unidentified journalists
The Washington Post reported that three journalists who had been at the White House tested positive on Friday. The only one of the three identified was the New York Times’s Michael Shear.
Shear, who believes he contracted the illness either at the White House last Saturday or on Air Force One, said on Monday that, despite the Trump administration’s claim that it was conducting contact tracing, nobody had had been in contact with him. On Tuesday, he told Axios that his wife had also tested positive, adding, “The collateral damage is going to be pretty significant, I think.”
One member of military working in White House
CNN reports that a military staffer “directly assigned to support the President” in the Oval Office and in his living quarters received a positive test over the weekend.
Two members of housekeeping staff
In a sign that the coronavirus’s spread in the White House has not been limited to President Trump’s close contacts, two members of the building’s housekeeping staff who hadn’t come into contact with him tested positive — and were told not to make a big fuss out of it.
White House aide Nick Luna
Trump’s body man was in close contact with the president last week, and traveled to and from Cleveland and Minnesota aboard Air Force One with Trump on Tuesday and Wednesday. That means he would have also been around Hope Hicks on the trip she first began showing symptoms of her infection. Luna reportedly skipped traveling to Bedminster, New Jersey on Thursday with Trump due to his exposure to Hicks.
Late Saturday, Bloomberg reported that Luna had also tested positive for COVID-19.
Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien
Politico reported late Friday night that Stepien, who traveled to and from Tuesday’s debate in Cleveland aboard Air Force One, and had also met with Trump on Monday at the White House, has tested positive for COVID-19:
Bill Stepien received his diagnosis Friday evening and was experiencing what one senior campaign official described as “mild flu-like symptoms.” People familiar with the situation said the 42-year-old Stepien plans to quarantine until he recovers.
Deputy Campaign Manager Justin Clark [who has apparently tested negative since the White House outbreak was discovered] is expected to oversee the Trump team’s Arlington, Va. headquarters while Stepien works remotely, though advisers stressed that he would maintain control of the campaign.
Republican National Committee chairwoman Ronna McDaniel
The Republican National Committee chair, who was last with Trump on Friday, is reportedly experiencing mild symptoms.
“After a member of her family tested positive for COVID-19, the Chairwoman was tested for the virus,” the RNC said in a statement. “On Wednesday afternoon, she got confirmation she was COVID-19 positive. She has been at her home in Michigan since last Saturday.”
Kellyanne Conway
The longtime Trump adviser attended last Saturday’s Rose Garden event at the White House when the president announced that he would nominate Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. She also participated in Trump’s maskless prep sessions before Tuesday’s debate. On Friday night, Conway announced that she had tested positive for COVID-19:
Trump adviser Chris Christie
The former New Jersey governor attended both indoor and outdoor maskless events at the White House on September 26 (the announcement of Amy Coney Barrett’s Supreme Court nomination), and was a member of Trump’s pre-debate prep team, which also went maskless. On Saturday morning, he announced he had tested positive:
Senator Mike Lee
The Utah Republican was at the White House on Tuesday meeting with Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett, who announced a negative test result on Friday. Neither wore masks.
Lee was also hugging guests at last week’s event in the Rose Garden for Barrett’s nomination announcement.
Senator Thom Tillis
The North Carolina Republican attended Trump’s Rose Garden event to announce his nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court last Saturday.
And it’s worth noting:
Senator Ron Johnson
The Wisconsin Republican’s test results were announced on Saturday morning, but it’s not clear if Johnson was exposed to anyone in the White House cluster. His office said that he was in contact with someone in Washington, D.C. on September 29 who later tested positive for COVID-19, but did not say who, or where they were in contact.
Notre Dame president Father John Jenkins
The college president, who was in attendance at Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination (she teaches at Notre Dame), announced a positive test on Friday morning. Jenkins, who published an op-ed in the New York Times last May arguing that reopening Notre Dame for in-person classes was “worth the risk,” has received criticism for failing to wear a mask or take other safety measures during his time at the White House.
According to the university, Jenkins got tested after he learned “that a colleague with whom he has been in regular contact tested positive,” but it’s not clear if Jenkins was exposed to that person before or after the White House event. Earlier this week, Jenkins sent a letter to the Notre Dame community apologizing for not wearing a mask at the event and shaking hands with other Rose Garden guests, explaining that he had received a negative test result from a COVID-19 rapid test and was told that meant he could remove his mask. He also said that he was quarantining as a result of his conduct at the event.
This post has been updated.
