Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser stated on Monday that the White House has not provided much-needed information regarding the COVID-19 outbreak at the White House that infected several top staffers and President Donald Trump himself, preventing the D.C. government from carrying out its own contact tracing.
“We have reached out to the White House on a couple of different levels, a political level and a public health level,” Bowser said.
One of D.C.’s health department officials “had a very cursory conversation” with the White House “that we don’t consider a substantial contact from the public health side,” she continued.
An unnamed D.C. official told the Associated Press that despite multiple attempts to reach White House doctors, the D.C. government has not received any information on the positive COVID-19 test results stemming from the outbreak.
The New York Times reported on Monday that the White House has not conducted any contact tracing of the staff and guests who attended Trump’s Rose Garden party for Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett over a week ago, which has been tied to the outbreak given that at least eight people at the event have tested positive.
“The White House has a robust contact tracing program in place led by the White House Medical Unit with CDC personnel and guidance,” White House spokesman Brian Morgenstern told NBC News.
