Ivanka Trump’s personal assistant tested positive for COVID-19, but she’s teleworking so it’s no big deal. But let’s not bury the lede:
Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner both tested negative on Friday, the person familiar with the matter told CNN.
Also, here’s a detail about Katie Miller, who is asympomatic:
Pence spokeswoman Katie Miller tested positive for the virus on Friday, after having tested negative Thursday.
It sounds like people in the White House and Trump’s inner circle are being tested daily. When, everywhere else, people are being tested only sporadically. And they get rapid tests, thanks to an Abbott Labs machine that only takes 15 minutes to determine a result.
Is this a big issue? Not if Trump were trying to get the same quality of testing for doctors, nurses and first responders. I think it’s a big deal and we should be making noise about it. What about you?
JoyceH
Damn right it’s a big deal. I remember immediately after 9/11, White House big wigs like Cheney were given Cipro just because, just in case. Meanwhile the Post Office workers who actually handled mail that contained anthrax were not given Cipro even when they asked for it – not until they started dying.
Makes my blood boil.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Mr DAW just told me those rapid tests have a 15% false negative reading. I don’t know where he got that, but it struck me as a problem.
Jinchi
Or, you know, never.
RSA
I wrote this on a different social media platform, and for a different situation, but the idea is the same:
Q: Are there guidelines for safe air travel?
A: The CDC is developing a document, but so far it has been suppressed by the Trump administration.
Q: Then how do you know it’s safe to get on an airplane today?
A: If you’re the Vice-President, you test every passenger first (the fast 15-minute test), and it’s safe if no one is infected. Otherwise you make it safe by kicking people off the plane.
Q: But I’m not the Vice-President. And we don’t have those tests.
A: Then go ahead, get on that plane! Be a warrior!
Wag
Karma is on the hunt!
Jinchi
@Dorothy A. Winsor: What’s the false positive rate? If they’re testing daily at the White House, they might expect a few positives even if no one actually had the virus.
rikyrah
bbleh
Oh my good man, for heaven’s sake no no NO!
Doctors, nurses and first responders are like the military, you see. They signed up for it. They knew what they were getting into. That’s why we pay them salaries. They’re like those meat-packing plant workers. There’s a market for them, and The Market™ always prices in risk. If they don’t like it, they can quit, and you can replace them, just like all those “scientists” who sit around all day, sucking down government salaries and not producing anything tangible.
Now be a good boy and write something more entertaining. And by the way, that’s quite enough of picking on poor Ivanka. Why can’t you bloggers be more civil?
Gretchen
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I heard it was 20% false negative. It’s definitely a thing that people can spread the virus before they test positive or show symptoms, which doesn’t seem to be a fact that has penetrated the galaxy brains of anyone in the White House.
Gin & Tonic
I could have sworn there was a news item yesterday about 31 Secret Service agents testing positive. Has that gone down the memory hole?
Jinchi
Like self-proclaimed “nationalist” David Brooks, most never-Trumpers are at least a little sympathetic to Trump’s ideology.
rikyrah
You can go on those $100 cruises if you want to
Knock yourself out ??
Wag
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
that is true. Timing of testing affects the positivity rate, as well.
in patients hospitalized within the first 3-5 days of symptoms of classic COVID, the false negative rate is around 15-20%. Once people are further into the disease process, around 2 weeks after onset of symptoms, the false negative rate rises to 50%.
nobody knows what the false positive rate is for patients who are pre-symptomatic or who are infected and never develop symptoms.
Martin
So, part of my scarceness (the other part being the inescapable dread of being led as a nation by the worst excuses for human beings any dystopian writer could conceive of) is that I’m trying to work out if we can implement cohort group learning on a massive scale across a university. For instance, take 30 students studying anthropology, and keep them together through their courses for a given term, including residing in the same residence hall, etc. so that they could fairly freely interact with each other but then need to do more aggressive social distancing outside of the group.
It involves changes to almost every aspect of what we do, but has a number of upsides. For one, we know cohort learning has very good outcomes. We’ve just never been able to implement it on a massive scale, so some aspects of this may carry forward. But it gives us a framework on which we can do many other things, including handling an outbreak because contact tracing becomes massively easier.
The Thin Black Duke
Thing is, as long as these clowns keep going out and not wearing masks, it won’t matter how often they get tested, right?
Wag
@Jinchi: Luckily the false positive rate is close to zero.
TaMara (HFG)
Testing? What’s that? says someone who has tried for a month to get any test at all.
Jinchi
Fortunately for us, a lot of governors have been ignoring him from the start. He’s abandoned all leadership. Hopefully America abandons him.
TaMara (HFG)
@Gin & Tonic: 11 and it’s all over the news.
Jinchi
Really, the false-negative rises after onset of symptoms? Are these people who’ve nearly recovered?
Benw
@RSA: lol!
rikyrah
rikyrah
@TaMara (HFG):
??????
bbleh
@Jinchi: False positives and false negatives often — though not always — move oppositely. Test design often requires balancing sensitivity (more sensitive = more positive results = more false positives) and specificity (more specific = more negative results = more false negatives).
Duane
@The Thin Black Duke: Apparently isolation isn’t a thing in the WH either. So many of them have been exposed and they’re still out in public.
Mary G
The nutcases are out in force in Raleigh, N.C., all 11 of them, and eating at Subway. Their arms races are out of control.
Acording to the comments,the rocket launcher is a used one-use only item, AKA paperweight.
Commenters say this one is made with toilet flanges for extra credit?
They are wearing masks of a kind. The news of Mrs. Miller and the hamberder man having tested positive made them more cautious?
patrick II
@bbleh:
…like a wall.
Sab
Didn’t Lamh say a few days ago that the Abbott tests weren’t particularly accurate? Not that that justifies the special treatment.
Wag
@Jinchi: That is probably part of the story. I don’t think anyone knows for sure. It may be that the viral replication moves to body part that we have a more difficult time testing. Nasopharyngeal mucus samples are easy to obtain, just stick the appropriate swab deeply enough into the nose, and voila! Later in the infection the virus may be replicating in deep lung tissue, which is much harder to sample.
Obdurodon
@Martin: That is so cool. Very much looking forward to hearing more about it.
Tokyokie
I’m a nurse at a nursing home. We just got in 15 residents who’d been at a facility with several confirmed cases of Covid-19, although so far, they have tested negative. I haven’t been tested, and I don’t think any of my colleagues have been either. If I had to choose between my colleagues and I dying or the Trump family, I’d choose that sordid clan every time. Nurses make positive contributions to society. Trumps only make negative ones.
Sab
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I am fine with them having false negatives since they don’t take any damn precautions anyway. Dream on, happy campers.
11 secret service guys tested positive! Don’t give a shit about the guys who will take a bullet for you. Brings a whole new level to sociopathy.
SFAW
@bbleh:
That’s coming, don’t worry. I believe we’re scheduled to be more civil after the Blogger Ethics Panel finishes.
I realize we’re uncivil, but are we shrill yet?
And what’s even more fun is that there are moron pundits out there who would probably write what you just wrote, but mean it.
rikyrah
Chetan Murthy
@JoyceH:
Run the government like a business. You know the kind where the CEO says “FYIGM”.
Yeah, times like these, reading things like these, I must restrain myself from saying things that would cause a visit from the Secret Service. B/c yanno, they’re all fuckin’ infected.
Jinchi
I guess that explains why he isn’t concerned about the outbreaks in ASL facilities or potentially exposing WWII vets.
Elizabelle
@rikyrah: Soupplantation — buffet restaurant chain — has closed permanently in California. For just that reason. The ‘rona has tanked their business model.
zhena gogolia
@rikyrah:
Oh, that is very nice to see.
WereBear
@TaMara (HFG): Glad to see you up and around, so to speak.
Another Scott
@Jinchi: From MM’s WaPo Link:
What? People should actually know the accuracy of these magical 5-13 minute tests that their government is paying for? That’s crazy talk! What are you, some kind of communist?!
Clearly a negative result on Thursday and a positive result on Friday means that only people anointed by the God-Emperor should get the test. It’s too problematic for anyone else.
:-/
I can’t find it, but early on there was a briefing from someone at the WHO (maybe with an Australian accent?) who was saying that it was vital for people talking to their citizens to be honest, transparent, and clearly talk about the facts as they were known (and not known). Donnie’s people continue to do everything exactly backwards from known best practices.
Grr…
Cheers,
Scott.
Elizabelle
@TaMara (HFG): Are you feeling 100% yet? How goes it??
MisterForkbeard
@rikyrah: But I was told that women hated Biden now because of Reade. How can this be?
Sorry, I just read some of the responses from The Left on Biden’s twitter feed and I’m in a bad mood.
Elizabelle
@Jinchi: Kathleen Parker’s win devalued the Pulitzer Prize, but nowhere near as much as Rush Limbaugh getting a Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Sab
@Tokyokie: My dad is in a nursing home and I haven’t seen him in six weeks. I see his nurse’s aide about once a week. Thank you so much. I think about you guys all day every day.
JoyceH
@Elizabelle: A lot of restaurants are going to go under. With the size of the space they rent, they can’t maintain safe distance between tables and still make enough money to break even. All those little restaurants in strip malls will probably be extinct by next year. Sigh. i’ll miss them.
rikyrah
@Gin & Tonic:
11 positive
60 in quarantine.
IMO, THIS is the main story.
sdhays
@TaMara (HFG): Have you tried applying for a job at the (very) White House?
ETA: I assume if you’re posting here you must be feeling ok?? I hope?
LeftCoastYankee
The kicker is Trump thinks the tests keep the virus away.
They should give them all lollipops every day and call them “tests”, and send the tests to useful people.
Rand Careaga
@Jinchi:
Roy Edroso calls them “just-the-tip-Trumpers.”
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Considering that Trump refuses to wear a mask in public I doubt if he is getting tested himself. I wouldn’t be surprised that the Secret Service is forcing everyone around him to get tested daily.
low-tech cyclist
I think 80,000 Americans dead of the coronavirus is a big deal and Democrats should be mad as hell about both that, and the fact that there’s no Administration plan to change the trajectory of this plague other than to make it even worse by opening things up.
They should be screaming for Trump’s resignation. Red-faced, vein-popping livid about what he’s done.
E.
According to Worldometer we have had just under 80,000 deaths and 1,342,000 confirmed cases I’m the U.S. I’m no mathematician but that’s over 5 percent fatalities. Seems scary high but probably a result of terrible testing. Many are falling I’ll and surviving but not getting tested. And some number are surely dying, too. I own a business and am watching this unfold in horror. Without significant testing it seems to me this will go on for months or years.
West of the Cascades
I’ve been listening to the audiobook of “Radium Girls” — Trump has run this country precisely like the management of the Radium Dial Corporation.
Mai naem mobile
Really, I would rather Ivanka and Jared test positive in prison where the care may not be,let’s say, top shelf care. Hope it’s a private prison since Jared and Ivanka like those public private partnerships so much.
lamh36
FYI, the Abbott ID NOW test has an issue with false negatives.
My hospital has gone to only using it mainly for acute symptomatic patients
Nelle
What new sorts of businesses are going to come out of this?
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@rikyrah: Trump tried that at the beginning and the governors vetoed him. So Trump is just going to double down and the same stupid idea as always. I guess 3 million of you die for herd immunity is Trump’s new wall.
Mai naem mobile
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: he could just be getting a CT scan daily. I have no idea if the movie ‘Dave’ was based on real WH capabilities but supposedly they have an ICU room ready to go so would it be a surprise they had the capability to do a CT scan?
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@E.: We’re under testing. Go look at the numbers for Norway, Iceland and South Korea to get a feel for what real testing verses mortality is like, they are bases for the 1% mortality rate, or 3 million Americans. Also Belgium is being as honest as the can and that’s why their numbers are so high because they are counting all the virus related deaths.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Gin & Tonic:
I saw something like that too, but the Secret Service is in something like 100 places across the country, so I don’t know how many–if any–of those were in Trump’s detail
Mai naem mobile
@lamh36: ofcourse it does. I have family who lives in the UK and was going to get them to send us some at home antibody tests the government had made available there but supposedly those tests have had problems too. I am not sure you can develop a really good test that fast and this novel COVID virus seems like a hard one to deal with.
Chetan Murthy
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
And why would he get tested? He knows if he gets it, eventually he’ll show a symptom, and then get the best medical care available. Nothing changes (for *him*) if he learns he’s infected -before- being symptomatic. And everybody around him? Dafuq he cares about that. What sociopathic narcissist ever cared about the people around him? And of course, everyone around him has the same attitude about all of *us*.
What puzzles me, is that they continue to work for him, interact with him, when he so clearly DGAF if they live or die.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Mai naem mobile: You most likely right what the White House has to treat the president, but again, this is Donald “Alternative Facts” Trump, how many times have we seen Trump wander into dangerous situations because he thinks he is immune? The guy is frakking idiot, he’s not doing an act like Boris Johnson. One of the reason we don’t have testing is Trump finds the test personally unpleasant. Most likely Trump is talking some quack cure like that malaria medicine and thinks that’s all he needs.
rikyrah
@E.:
Those numbers are too low. There are too many states that haven’t been reporting the nursing home deaths ??
Mai naem mobile
@Nelle: I think there’s going to be quickly scalable 3D printing of PPE primarily for healthcare facilities but also other companies, and some kind of continuous cleaning of ventilation systems built in within the HVAC system. This would be something beyond the Dyson kind of air purifiers. Also some kind of self cleaning systems for the plexiglass stuff you’re seeing everywhere. Also also too, attractive appropriate backgrounds for people to set up for their Zoom meetings(because it’s all about branding with millennials.) Like they do the green screens/weather maps for weather people on teevee.
The Pale Scot
I tore my father a new asshole after he started babbling about that Plandemic idiocy and Fauci’s making millions off the Rona. I was so pissed couldn’t eat. This Doctor Dude sums it up in 3 minutes.
I fear that the war against aggressive stupidity is futile.
billcinsd
The Cleveland Clinic plans to rely on other tests that performed better in the study, Procop said. That includes the test developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which detected 100% of positive samples. Another test, made by Roche, detected 96.5% of positive samples. The fifth test in the study, made by Cepheid, detected 98.2% of infected samples, Procop said. The Cepheid test produces results in less than an hour.
npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/04/21/838794281/study-raises-questions-about-false-negatives-from…
ziggy
@Tokyokie: This pisses me off SO much. I don’t know why, but it really bothers me that the pack of thieves in the white house get tested every day now (it used to be once a week, then after valet incident, upped to once a day!) with the rapid Abbott tests. That adds up to a LOT of tests. They can’t be bothered to wear a mask, telecommute, do social distancing or anything, because they are apparently royalty.
But workers like you on the front line can’t get a test. We’re all expendable.
bbleh
@SFAW:Well, I don’t know if they mean it, but they are certainly paid very handsome salaries by The New York Times to crank out regular columns that say it.
Hey, you think I have a shot? Maybe punch it up a bit? Do some AOC-bashing? Tsk-tsk a little bit (but not too much!) about some particularly stupid trick by a mid-ranking Trump minion? Fret about the National Debt coming to eat us all? Be honest now …
bbleh
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: And when it turns out to be only 2.5 million dead, it will be a Great Victory, the greatest ever, really, I’m told a lot of people are saying.
Sab
@low-tech cyclist: I would be that angry if it would help. Fact is it wouldn’t help. So I don’t waste my energy getting angry. I have family to protect. So I do other stuff. We all have other stuff to do.
Geoduck
CNN is saying the CDC director is self-quarantining because he was exposed to some COVID-infected person at/from the White House. This is fine.
Doc Sardonic
@Elizabelle: Their sister chain Sweet Tomatoes has also gone under, between the two chains that’s 97 locations and 4,000 jobs down the drain.
Jinchi
There’s no way Trump got tested more than once, if that. Testing doesn’t cure you, it simply tells everyone you’re sick and potentially contagious. He doesn’t care if anyone else gets sick, so what’s the point?
He also described graphically how miserable the tests were and he’s not one to suffer when someone else can do it instead. So they test everyone around him daily and he sits content knowing he can’t catch it if no-one around him has it.
Fair Economist
@Elizabelle: Loved Souplantation but there’s no way a buffet chain can survive this. No business until wide distribution of a vaccine, and maybe not even then.
piratedan
@lamh36: we’ve pretty much stopped using it altogether in our system. Is it better than no testing at all…. yes. Is testing done thru laboratory means more accurate, most certainly so. Fast doesn’t always equal accurate… I liken it to a snapshot, yes you get a glimpse, whereas an instrument in Micro (or Virology if you have a specialized department for that (or even immunology)) can check more key markers and give you a panoramic view.
Doc Sardonic
@Fair Economist: This is unfortunately going to probably kill one of my favorite Asian buffets. Sad because it is run by a young Chinese couple with a toddler, and they were building a very good clientele. Also, too, going to be interesting to see what this is going to do for the food model for the large gambling houses and floating Petri dish lines.
Luciamia
Jesus, Covid-19. You keep missing the target.
rikyrah
rikyrah
@Geoduck:
???
chopper
@rikyrah:
70%? given how this thing spreads, more like 80-85%. maybe even more.
chopper
@Mary G:
yeah, that big-ass rifle is a mock-up made of wood and apparently a cut-up closet flange. the hell, man.
Another Scott
@rikyrah: france24.com/en/20200509-rock-n-roll-pioneer-little-richard-dies-aged-87
He was a giant, and showed the great things that can happen when people are able to be themselves.
RIP.
Cheers,
Scott.
Roger Moore
@Doc Sardonic:
Your local Chinese buffet could more easily retool itself into a traditional restaurant than a chain like Souplantation. So even if COVID-19 really hurts buffets, your local place has a shot at survival in altered form.
Roger Moore
@chopper:
Given an R0 of about 3, you need about 75% of people to get it (or be vaccinated) to achieve herd immunity. Since most of stuff I’ve seen puts R0 at about 3 or a bit lower, 70% seems like a reasonable estimate.
debbie
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
A woman I worked with died the day after she tested negative for COVID.
Another Scott
:-) I mean, Grrr….!
Cheers,
Scott.
J R in WV
@Another Scott:
A great comment about such a great performer… I learned a little bit more about one of my favorite founders of R&R.
Between him and Bo Diddley… if only we had tapes of Little Richard with Jimmi. If only… so many great shows by masters performed in little clubs with no sound guy with a multi-level tape deck to show up 40 years later with history on tape…
susanna
Something that could be in the planning for near future (pre-November), by states, counties, cities, hamlets, etc. is finding ways to mass-honor those citizens who’ve lost their lives.
Horrify people with the scope of this disaster and make it personal, so people can relate, something the MSM can’t ignore. Have a silent 6′ walk in communities. Or make noise. Light up buildings in cities and towns.
Those who had their lives cut OFF, not short, and their families need something like this recognition within the coming 4-5 months, as the election and beyond will be a mess o’politics.
We could and need to take back the narrative that moves and enthuses people to think and feel something other than anger, fear, helplessness, hopelessness.
They best be officially planned by the deceased locales. It could be something like floating candles down rivers, relatives standing 6′ apart, holding their picture, taking up city blocks or bridges at dawn. It would help if they were made to be very big deals, not at all political. It will be a large effort, but if started now, possible for pre-election.
Skepticat
@Another Scott:
And that’s hardly confined to medical issues.
Bex
@Mai naem mobile: I don’t think they have that kind of equipment at the White House. That’s why his Imperial Majesty had to go to the hospital last year for whatever he had going on. Of course we have no idea what that was.
Brachiator
@Roger Moore:
I don’t know. I think all buffet style restaurants are going to have a tough time surviving. Hell, restaurants are going to have tough time surviving, period.
Local governments and business owners really need to get together and come up with some creative solutions.
And some solutions may depend greatly on the area where the restaurants are located. In the Pasadena area, Robin Salzer, former owner of Robins BBQ, has an interesting idea that might work in this sunny Southern California city:
This kind of thing might offset proposals that interior seating be reduced.
Skepticat
Maine is partnering with a Maine company, Idexx, best known for animal diagnostic testing. According to the Portland paper, the head of the state CDC said “one of the reasons Idexx was well suited to partner with the state was because of its supply of chemicals needed to run each test. For weeks, Maine and other states have relied on the federal government for these so-called reagents, which have been in short supply … and they’d have an independent ability to keep a steady supply of ingredients.” That ought to let them triple what they’re doing now and conduct about 5,000 more tests a week.
The governor also is considering rethinking the limited opening they’ve done and restricting it to only areas with few cases. Not surprisingly, she’s taking a lot of abuse.
Roger Moore
@Brachiator:
I don’t think a truly permanent closure of Colorado Blvd is on order, if for no other reason than for the ToR. But I could see a closure for a few months. I’ve suggested that Sierra Madre could close down one of the minor streets in their downtown (Kersting Court) to make al fresco dining practical.
Miss Bianca
@rikyrah: We can dream.
I hope your cousin will be okay. Kind of an atheist here, but like Rahsaan Roland Kirk, I will Say A Little Prayer.
SFAW
@bbleh:
Well, I think you understand the model well enough, and the readers will cut you some slack, as long as you remember to attack all the right targets — Soros, Obama, Hitlary, the Deep State … you get the idea — so I’d give it a shot. Try the FTFTFNYT first; I realize they’re the big dog in the pretending-to-be-liberal pantheon, but I bet they’re looking for someone to balance out their liberal op-ed writers (Douthat, Stephens, guest appearances by McConnell and Hewitt).
I say: GO FOR IT!!!
The Lodger
@Brachiator: Seattle and Portland are about to close dozens of streets to vehicular traffic. That idea would work there… about four months a year.
AnotherBruce
@The Lodger: That’s already been done. The West Seattle bridge, which used to carry heavy volumes of traffic to downtown is closed down. Even some residential streets are closed down. Oh well, global warming somewhat gets a reprieve.