Good morning, and welcome to the Essential California newsletter. It’s Tuesday, Oct. 6, and I’m writing from Los Angeles.
President Trump was discharged from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on Monday night, three days after traveling there by helicopter from the White House. The president, who announced he had tested positive for COVID-19 early Friday morning, is not “out of the woods yet,” according to his physician. He will continue treatment at the White House.
[Read the story: “Trump returns to White House, although doctors say he ‘may not entirely be out of the woods’” in the Los Angeles Times]
The president had announced his impending departure from Walter Reed earlier in the day by way of Twitter. In that same tweet, the president made clear that his own brush with the virus had done little to change his views about it.
[See also: “Even sick with COVID-19, Trump refuses to change tune on pandemic” in the Los Angeles Times]
“Don’t be afraid of Covid,” the president tweeted while actively battling the potentially lethal disease in question. “Don’t let it dominate your life.” That tweet was sent seven months into a once-in-a-century pandemic that has upended economies and snuffed out the lives of 210,000 Americans. Many of those people died alone, with their loved ones barred from their final moments.
It is difficult for anything to be shocking this far into our surreal year of inept bureaucrats and senseless death, where reality is doled out in equal parts tragedy and farce. And yet.
While not particularly surprising, there was still something shocking about the president of the United States continuing to so recklessly underplay the threat of the virus — even after it had seriously affected his own health — while receiving an extraordinary level of aggressive, experimental care available to virtually no one else in the country.
As my colleagues Noah Bierman and Eli Stokols report, the president’s advice rang alarms among health professionals, who pointed out that the disease remains deadly and is spiking in numerous states.
“It’s a hell of a message to send when everywhere you look around the world, indicators are showing that as we get into the fall we’re seeing more cases, just like scientists expected,” Ralph Catalano, a professor of public health at UC Berkeley, told them. “And to encourage people to put themselves at risk right now seems reckless and inhumane. How irresponsible can a president actually be?”
Here in California, more than 16,000 people have died because of the virus. After the deadly summer surge, the state has had some success in reining in the spread. But as my colleague Colleen Shalby reported late last week, even though daily case counts and hospitalizations have declined in recent weeks, officials have forecast an 89% increase in the latter by Oct. 25. After a surge in emergency room visits and a slight, but notable, increase in cases, the statewide projected transmission rate of the virus has risen. The virus threat is far from over, particularly as we move into fall and face a possible “twindemic” scenarioas flu season begins.
[See also: “The pandemic’s toll: Lives lost in California” in the Los Angeles Times]
Californians have already faced the tragic repercussions of prematurely rushing back into normalcy: We saw record hospitalizations and fatalities this summer, after the reopening of the economy and a loosening of social behaviors in the late spring.
“We’ll continue to maintain our vigilance,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom said when asked Monday about how the president’s diagnosis might affect the state’s approach to the pandemic. “We’ll continue not to send mixed messages as it relates to importance and the imperative of wearing masks or minimize the impact of this disease on people’s health and lives that are lost.”
Back on the East Coast, the president left Walter Reed just after 6:30 p.m. Monday in a televised departure that, as my D.C. colleagues note, “was timed to the evening newscasts, generating the type of wall-to-wall coverage Trump craves.”
He arrived back on the White House’s South Lawn shortly thereafter. After exiting Marine One, the president climbed stairs to a White House balcony where he removed his mask on live television. He left his mask off as he reentered one of the country’s most high-profile workplaces.
According the Washington Post, roughly 90 full-time staff members, including ushers, butlers, housekeepers, cooks and valets, work in the White House residence. The Post reports that those residence staff members are largely Black and Latino, and often elderly.
The toll of the White House outbreak continued to widen Monday, with White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany and prominent Riverside pastor Greg Laurie among the newly announced positive cases. Laurie, who serves as pastor of the megachurch Harvest Christian Fellowship, attended the Sept. 26 event at the Rose Garden where Trump announced the Supreme Court nomination of Amy Coney Barrett. Two aides to McEnany have also tested positive.
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